


Gallia Falling

by BlueNightmare



Category: Senjou no Valkyria | Valkyria Chronicles
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Bondage, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Gags, Interrogation, Prisoner of War, Sexual Abuse, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 13:10:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18692146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueNightmare/pseuds/BlueNightmare
Summary: As the Battle of Vasel rages, four members of Squad 7 find themselves isolated behind enemy lines. Captured by the Empire, they are forced to survive the attentions of the enemy soldiers and hope that rescue arrives.





	1. Susie

**Author's Note:**

> Another old story, from 2013, edited a little bit.

Fires sprang up throughout the Vasel faster than the pounding rain could douse them.

The battle for the riverside city had raged for three long days and the downpour had barely ceased, making already difficult combat almost unbearable. The battle lines had barely shifted since the invading Empire had begun hostilities with the native Gallians, the defenders' army and militia coping well with the crushing force of Imperial tanks but not well enough to repel them.  
At least the rain washed away the blood that filled the streets.

Amidst the mire of bullets and raindrops and ever-present grey, a certain Gallian unit initiated a flanking maneuver upon the Imperial forces in the north of the city. Militia Squad 7, veterans of numerous battles throughout the war, had been given the mission by their superiors in the Gallian Army proper. It was considered an extremely dangerous task, but it was said that the top echelons of the army regarded the militia as competent but expendable; if they succeeded the entire Gallian military would benefit, but if they died, few above a certain rank in the army would shed a tear.

Splitting into several independent units, Squad 7 advanced into enemy territory in an attempt to seize the famed Great Vasel Bridge in a surprise attack. Despite their past successes against the invaders, few within the squad believed they would survive this terrible battle...

~ ~ ~

Susie Evans' eyes fluttered open.

Her head ached. It was cold. She was lying on hard, rough concrete. Detail by detail her awakening mind composed an image of her unfamiliar situation. Her left arm hurt. Her rifle lay beneath her body. The knees of her uniform were torn. She was in one piece. She was alone.

The blonde private climbed to her feet, taking in her surroundings as she checked herself over for injury. The battlefield was far from the natural habitat of the tall, pretty girl from the country. A pacifist by nature, Susie loathed the war and the military in which her wealthy parents had forced her to enlist; for her there was no greater hell than one in which she was forced to kill or die. Yet here she was, decked out in militia uniform, with grenades and rifle clips buckled to her belt...

To her great relief she seemed to be free of injuries after all, but Susie was not without her share of new problems. Her memory of the last few moments before unconsciousness were fuzzy, but it seemed that the building she had been passing through with her unit had partly collapsed on them, likely hit by a stray mortar shell. It had been several storeys tall and the rubble had completely blocked the path through which she had come... and cut her off from her squadmates. If they weren't under the debris...

"Lynn! Edy! Freesia!" She called the names of her teammates one by one, hoping to hear some sort of reply, but the only response she received was a dwindling echo of her own voice as it carried through the halls. Susie swallowed as a series of distressing possibilities whirled through her mind. Were they unconscious? Dead? Just out of hearing? Anything could have happened to them in a place like this. Captured, maimed, their lives snuffed out in an instant. It was sickening to the peace-loving country girl, an unnecessary reminder of the brutality of warfare she so despised.

Susie gathered her wits, reining in her darker thoughts before panic could set in. She _would_ find her comrades, or at least get back to friendly territory, but only if she did not succumb to her fears. She had to move on, even in the face of adversity... and pray that the next people she laid eyes on were Gallians.

~ ~ ~

Several minutes of investigation had proven there was no way to reach the rest of the building, cut off by the rubble from above. With no other options, Susie began to make for the sole exit still available to her, a door into a side alley. There had been no sign of her three teammates, alive or dead. All she could do was hope that they still lived.

Returning to the outside world, Susie had quickly found herself lost in a maze of narrow, near-identical alleyways. Lamenting the unnecessarily complex nature of Vasel's architecture, she advanced through the pouring rain with her rifle raised, trying to ignore the way her drenched uniform clung to her body. Such discomforts were minor compared to the threat of sudden death were she caught unawares. She advanced, her hated rifle shouldered with her finger on the trigger, keeping her eyes and ears open. Every step forward was a risk, every moment another chance to die... 

She rounded a corner, and came face to face with the enemy.

He was alone, just as she was, but he was no less dangerous for his solitude. Clad from head to toe in the grey armor of an Imperial shocktrooper, he stared at Susie through the narrow slot in his obscuring helmet, clutching his own gun in both hands. The muzzle of the menacing weapon was pointed directly toward her; he was as aware of her as she was of him. Yet neither opened fire.

Susie tried to control her shaking hands as she watched him over the sight of her rifle. "P-put the gun down," she stammered through her suddenly dry mouth, her heart pounding. "I don't want to kill you. Please just put it down."

To her shock the Imperial chuckled, his derisive laughter echoing within the metal confines of his helmet. "I don't think so, girl. Do you know what the fire rate on one of these is?" He stroked the barrel of the gun with one hand, his other remaining poised over the trigger. "Course you have, you must have seen them in action. And I've seen what you've got there do its thing. A Gallian-3, right? You think that piece of shit's gonna stop me if I decide to gun you down? Just drop it, or we get to find out."

Susie swallowed. It was all true. Her rifle was good enough, as far as machines made for killing went, but the Imperial was holding a submachine gun. Hers would be lucky to pierce his heavy armor, but his would tear her to pieces in an instant. She couldn't fight, she couldn't run, not if she wanted to live. Surrender was the only way she was going to survive, for as he had said, he could have killed her already if he wanted to.

She bent over and slowly lowered her rifle to the ground, a part of her glad of this outcome. She wouldn't die today, and she didn't have to kill. For her this battle could be over, if not the war.

~ ~ ~

He led her deeper into enemy lines at gunpoint, her hands clasped upon her head, her weaponry stolen away. Few words passed between them, little more than snapped commands and murmured acceptance. 

The further from Gallian territory she was led, the deeper the pit in Susie's stomach grew. Surrender had been the best option, but it was still not a _good_ option. She had placed herself in the hands of the enemy, her fate no longer hers to control, and if they decided that she should be killed, there would be nothing that she could do about it. What fate awaited her? would she wish she had chosen death?

Their destination proved to be a seemingly average two-floor house due south of Susie's original position, its white walls untouched by the relentless hail of bullets and bombs that had pummeled so much of the city of Vasel. Susie could be under no illusions about its purpose, however; it and the surrounding area were crawling with Imperial troops. A quiet family home had been transformed into a base for the invading army.

After a quick exchange with the guards at the door, Susie's captor guided her through the entranceway and into the house, immediately directing her into the living room. Most of the furniture had been pushed to the walls and stacked in front of the windows, fortifying the building in case of attack. A ragnite-powered lamp blazed in the corner, bringing light to the darkened room.

The Imperial ordered Susie to stand in the center of the room, and the young woman obeyed this latest order as she had with all of the others. It was the next one, however, that made her freeze in shock, her heart sinking into her belly.

"All right, strip."

She nearly choked on her response, her blue eyes wide. "W-what!? No!"

The soldier glared at her through the slot in his helmet. He still hadn't taken the thing off. "Do you even know where the hell you are, you stupid cow? You are a prisoner of war. You live at our pleasure!" His fingers twitched around the submachine gun he cradled, his voice rising into a roar as he continued."We need that uniform of yours, so one way or another you are losing it! Do I have to do it for you!?"

"No, sir..." Susie whispered, cringing from the Imperial's fury. Her self-preservation instincts began to override her modesty; it was this or a bullet to the head. At least they only wanted her uniform; things could be a lot worse for a captured soldier, and the Empire's soldiers were not known for their kindness and decency. She knew she should be grateful they hadn't taken the clothing from her corpse.

She turned her back on the soldier, her eyes fixing on a lone painting on the far wall. Focusing on something else was the only way she could do this. If she forgot where she was, maybe this would be a little easier on her. If she were a thousand miles away, in a foreign land untouched by war and chaos...

The soldier cleared his throat impatiently. "Last warning."

She could delay no longer. Her hands still trembling, Susie slipped off one of her thick gloves, then the other, depositing the pair at her feet. Next to come off were her knee-length leather boots, bringing her socks with them as the tight footwear was removed from her body. Her belt dropped, falling around her ankles, carrying with it a dozen empty pouches and hooks that were the last remnant of her army-issued weaponry.

Though only her hands and feet were exposed, she already felt naked before the hostile eyes of her Imperial captor. She turned her head towards him, pleading eyes gleaming through stray locks of golden hair. "Do you have to watch?" she croaked, a last desperate attempt to salvage her dignity.

The soldier showed no sympathy. "I could use the entertainment. Don't get much fun on the battlefield, so I'll take what I can get, and you Gallian girls are kinda hot." He motioned for her to continue disrobing. "You're what, twenty? Twenty-one?"

"Nineteen," Susie answered, her voice barely audible, knowing that she could stall no longer. A single tear trickled down her cheek as she took hold of the hem of her damp uniform shirt and tugged it up over her head, dropping it on the floor with the rest of her gear. Another layer gone, another tear shed. 

She could feel the eyes of the soldier hungrily watching as she lifted her black undershirt up over her modest breasts, leaving them covered only by the flimsy lace bra beneath. Pale pink to match the ribbon in her hair, it concealed very little of Susie's chest from wandering eyes and she felt her face burn in mortification at her unwilling exposure. She had never been so undressed in front of a male before, and the naive country girl could not claim to enjoy the experience.

Ignoring the appreciative hum from the Imperial she slipped her trousers down to her ankles and stepped out of them, abandoning the last of her Gallian uniform and leaving her clad in only her underwear. Like her bra, her brief pink panties belonged to Susie herself and were not a part of the militia uniform; she dared to hope that she would not need to forfeit them as well. It was already ghastly enough being on display in her undergarments; while facing away from her captor had allowed Susie to hide her cleavage and crotch from his gaze so far, this left her barely clothed bottom enticingly pointed in his direction. It was utterly humiliating.

"Nice," the shocktrooper murmured, moving in to scoop up the discarded Gallian uniform. For a long moment his arms were occupied with gathering the clothing and not by pointing his submachine gun in her direction, but Susie simply allowed the opportunity to pass her by. Even if she miraculously overpowered him and seized his weapon, she would still be just a half-naked girl in the middle of enemy territory. She stood no chance of escape on her own.

At least he hadn't made her strip completely naked. At times like this, she had to hold on to the small blessings. That was what her mother had taught her.

She heard the approach of another set of footsteps and turned around, her arms wrapped over her small breasts for the sake of her wounded modesty. A second soldier had joined them, clad in similar garb and carrying a canvas bag. "Huh, she _is_ a hottie," he muttered as he handed the first soldier the bag, taking her shed clothing in her return. "Gonna be hard to find one of our guys to fit in this uniform, though. I'm gonna report to the boss; you know what to do with her."

Susie's heart sank as the second soldier departed. What did they mean, do with her? She had given them what they had wanted, so now what was to become of her? Dread began to consume her as she trembled, partly from fear, partly from exposure to the cold air. Were they going to kill her after all?

"All right, Gallian, time to make sure you don't forget you're a prisoner." Clutching the canvas bag in one hand and his gun in the other, the shocktrooper gestured to her with the muzzle of the latter. "Lie down on the floor, on your belly, and put your hands behind your back."

The moment she heard the order, Susie knew what was in the bag and what was going to happen to her. Not that it made a difference; the last dregs of her faltering defiance had been leeched away by the loss of her uniform. She lay down on the carpet, the wiry bristles scraping against her bare skin and digging into her breasts, and timidly placed her hands atop her knicker-clad bottom. Never before had she felt so vulnerable.

She heard him behind her, opening the bag and rifling through its contents, and closed her eyes. The next thing she felt was her hands being pulled together, palm to palm, and the touch of some sort of thin cord against her skin. He wasted no time, repeatedly winding the cord around her wrists in a matter of seconds, drawing them closer and closer together. Susie grunted as she felt the tension in her forearms increase, but the soldier didn't slow down for an instant, completing a fourth circuit of her arms and feeding the remainder of the cord through the gap between her wrists. A few additional revolutions later and her hands were securely bound together behind her, with not the slightest shred of slack she could use to escape.

Susie grimaced in discomfort, her body slowly adjusting to her new position. "Do you really have to do this?" she whimpered as the soldier returned to his bag for more. The cord bit into her wrists whenever they made the slightest movement, and she was not looking forward to being stuck like this for what would probably be a long time. "Can't you just handcuff me? Or lock me up?"

"Sorry, sweetheart, we're doing this my way." He raised his gloved hand and brought his palm crashing down on Susie's scantily-clad buttocks, the sound of the smack resounding through the room. So did her yelp of pain and shock; with her eyes still closed, the blond girl hadn't seen it coming. She let loose a broken sob as the stinging pain set in. Despite her friendly, down-to-earth nature, Susie was the child of a wealthy, privileged family. She had never before been treated so roughly, her dignity shredded...

She was torn from her despondent thoughts by the sensation of another cord being wrapped around her arms, but this time it seemed to be going around her elbows. Confusion turned to alarm as she felt the rope tightening, slowly pulling her elbows together behind her back. Her body wasn't meant to bend this way! "Please don't," she whispered as the cord tightened yet further, sending daggers of pain through her straining shoulders.

Her tormentor snorted and continued his work. "Did you think being a prisoner of war was easy, kiddo? You're lucky you're still alive." With a fierce tug he yanked Susie's elbows so close together that she feared her arms might break. They didn't, but she could not hold in a cry of pain as the soldier secured the cord in place with a deft series of knots. She couldn't use her arms at all anymore; her captor certainly knew what he was doing.

Distracted by her newfound helplessness and the growing ache in her arms, Susie barely offered any protest as the shocktrooper used to fasten her slender legs together at her ankles, then at her knees. It was something of a relief to have her legs tied closed, given her state of undress, but as with the rest of her bindings these latest proved to be mercilessly tight.

By the time he was done, she was completely immobilized. He rolled her over onto her back, resting her on the arms so stringently lashed behind her, staring down at her half-naked form with desire in his dark eyes. His hand hovered above the the inviting curves of her modest breasts; Susie cringed, waiting for the first brutish squeeze of her virgin flesh...

"Hey! Stahl! Orders to move out in five!" The cultured voice of an older man floated through the doorway, its owner staring at Susie's captor with disapproval. He was tall and broad-shouldered, a thin black mustache the only hair evident on his head, and dressed in the heavy combat gear of an anti-tank lancer. "Is that the Gallian girl? Leave her alone, this army is no place for those who would take advantage of helpless women. Just lock her up and get ready to march."

Just like that he was gone, heading deeper into the house and out of sight. Susie breathed a sigh of relief at what the lancer had said, but the hopeful feeling was short-lived. The look in her shocktrooper captor's eyes spoke of barely restrained rage as he fished about in the canvas bag for something. After a few seconds of searching, he withdrew a grime-stained cloth that had once been white and wadded it into a ball. "Open up, girl."

Susie's stomach twisted as she looked at the dirty fabric with distaste. "You really don't have to put that in my - mmmrph!"

"But I want to," the soldier named Stahl insisted, forcing the ball of cloth deep inside her mouth with a pair of gloved fingers. As Susie gagged and retched against the intruding rag, its gritty texture and oily taste making her want to vomit, Stahl tore the pink ribbon from her hair, letting her blonde locks cascade freely down her back. Before the young captive could react to this latest transgression he was forcing the silken ribbon between her rosy lips and savagely yanking the ends behind her head, wedging its length between her pearly teeth and knotting it so tightly that it gouged into the corners of her lips. Susie gave a muffled whine of protest behind the filthy cloth that packed her mouth; there was no way she was getting it out on her own with the ribbon holding it in there. Not with her hands tied behind her so securely.

"Now I'll find you a nice, dark cell," Stahl told her, admiring his handiwork as much as her exposed, vulnerable body. There was an air of innocence about the captured soldier rarely seen on the battlefield, a stark contrast to the hellish carnage outside. Seeing such an angel trussed up at his feet, beautiful and helpless, naked but for the pink underthings that accentuated her virginal allure... it inflamed his lust to soaring heights. If only he could drag her into one of the bedrooms and take her right now...

But duty called. The Empire required his service.

"Don't look at me like that," he whispered as he picked Susie up in his arms and threw her over his shoulder, his hand resting upon her behind once again. He couldn't resist a single squeeze of her supple flesh as he began to cart her from the room, bound for the basement; the girl's stifled squeak made him smile behind his helmet. "I'll be back before you know it, and then we can really have some fun. The captain can't keep an eye on us forever."


	2. Lynn

"You're sure she went in here?"

"Hundred percent, sir."

"Well, let's flush her out."

The voices of the soldiers echoed throughout the warehouse as they made their way inside its towering walls, guns in their hands, fingers clutching triggers. Grey-brown armour and full-face helmets marked the duo as shocktroopers of the Imperial army, the fearsome frontline troops of the invaders from the east. Each was almost indistinguishable from the other, their every motion drilled into them by years of training.

A maze of crates and machinery awaited them within, left as they had been at the moment the building was abandoned. The textiles warehouse seemed mostly untouched by the battle raging through Vasel, but it had not escaped harm entirely; a section of the roof had been punctured by a mortar shell, the jagged hole in the ceiling shedding cloud-dimmed sunlight through much of what remained. 

The pockets of darkness that still lingered were a boon to the lone Gallian soldier hiding inside. Separated from the rest of her group by the collapse of a building right over their heads, Lynn was alone and disoriented, her weapon lost in the debris. She had been fortunate even to survive the disaster, but she had heard nothing from Edy, Susie or Freesia in well over an hour and had no safe means of backtracking to find them. For all she knew, they were dead and she alone.

She crouched in the shadows between a pair of large crates, hoping that the Imperials would fail to spot her. Her milk-white skin would be a liability in the dark but the twenty year old Gallian woman had not the time to obscure it. The Imperials had spotted her less than five minutes after the group's separation and she had been on the run ever since.

It was not just the sight of her Gallian uniform that had sent the enemy after her, though it surely would have been enough. Any loyal son of the empire would have given chase to a woman with the telltale blue-black hair and eyes of the Darcsen race. To the prejudiced Imperials her 'unclean' descent made her less than human, an animal to be enslaved or a target to be eradicated. Lynn had suffered through discrimination and petty hatred for her birth since her childhood days, but this was the first time it had threatened to get her killed.

She could hear them discussing her as they swept the warehouse, their boots clomping against concrete and kicking aside rubble. _Filthy dark-hair_ had been hurled at her an an insult more times than she could count, but now it was the nicest of the names they called her as they searched, and Lynn cursed herself for losing her gun in the collapse. Ending lives brought her no pleasure, even those of bigots such as these, but if her options were to kill or to die, she would do what she had to in order to survive. Her beloved Karl was waiting for her...

The longer the soldiers searched, the more irritated they became. Jeering taunts soon became exasperated challenges and accusations of cowardice shouted into the dark. What kind of soldier ran from just two of her enemies? Was it her Darcsen blood that made her a gutless craven, or did all Gallians share her terror of the Empire? Perhaps it was because she was a woman, for who knew what might happen to a pretty lady captured by the enemy?

 _You'll find out,_ they assured her as the sound of gravel crunched beneath boots came ever closer to her hiding spot. They were only a few meters away from Lynn now, and nearing with every passing second...

Her fear had become overpowering, animal panic slowly seizing control. Every horror story she had heard of the Imperial Darcsen purges paraded through her mind, leaving visions of death and torture and slavery in their wake. The Empire was not known for treating its prisoners well, but for a Darcsen like Lynn, being captured would be a death sentence. Or perhaps, she reflected as a wave of crippling nausea hit, she would merely wish she was dead. There was no way out; even should she escape this warehouse, she would still be lost in enemy territory. They were going to find her, and then they were going to...

"There she is!"

Lynn's heart lurched as her primal instincts kicked in. There was no more time for fatalistic thoughts; she had been spotted. Her body commanded her to fight or to flee, but the loss of her weapon left her with only a single option.

She ran for her life, and their bootsteps thundered after her.

The walls of crates and abandoned machines had been a boon for the ethereal Darcsen girl as she sought a place to hide from the enemy, but now the maze was turned against her. Which way was the exit? Where were the Imperials? Her fear only disoriented her further as she was confronted by unfamiliar paths at every turn. All sense of direction had abandoned her, leaving her to wander and hope and jump at every shadow as she sought the only way out of the dismal warehouse.

Everywhere she went, the sound of boots pounding on stone followed her. There was no escape, only panic that grew worse by the second. Memories of the concentration camps at Fouzen were vivid in her mind; hundreds of people enslaved and mistreated, clothed in rags and forced to labor in the mines, all for the crime of being born a Darcsen. If she were caught, being imprisoned in such a place would be the kindest fate she could expect.

So lost was she in thoughts of doom and torment that she almost didn't see the Imperial soldier step out in front of her. 

Midnight eyes wide in dawning horror, Lynn skidded to a halt, her heart hammering within. She attempted to turn, run back the way she came... but the Darcsen woman was simply not fast enough to escape the lunge of the grey-clad shocktrooper. 

He caught her by her forearm as she tried to flee and dragged the struggling girl back toward him, pulling her body firmly into his own and slipping his free arm around her throat to pin her in place. Smothered by his sweaty scent, Lynn thrashed against her captor's grip with all of her might, but her strength proved a shadow of the Imperial's, and even the adrenaline surging through her body was not enough to help her slip out of his iron-strong hold.

He forced her to the warehouse floor, pulling her down with his superior weight and pressing her face into the icy concrete. Crushed beneath the armored trooper straddling her, Lynn found herself struggling even to breathe, let alone to resist capture. Pinned face-down, her wrists seized and yanked behind her, she closed her eyes and let the tension seep out of her body. It was over. 

She was theirs.

~ ~ ~  
"Should've killed the oily little Darcsen bitch."

"We'll have our chance. Just got to get her uniform back to base in one piece first."

Marched through the ruined city at gunpoint, her hands bound behind her with tight leather cord, Lynn had no choice but to listen to the malicious banter of her two Imperial captors. There was no doubt in her mind that they were serious about wanting to kill her, even when she was no threat to them or their plans. Loathing of the Darcsen race ran deep, particularly in the ranks of the Empire's finest.

She was used to the hatred, the disgusted looks and vicious insults, but never before had they placed her life in peril. The fate of a captured Darcsen could only be grim. There was no question in her mind that she was to be killed, only morbid speculation as to whether she would be sent to the mines or simply executed outright...

She silenced her thoughts as they reached their apparent destination; once an ordinary house in an ordinary neighborhood, the two-floor building had been converted into an outpost for the Imperials and was heavily guarded. The same contemptuous sneers decorated the sentries as the Darcsen woman was forced to walk past them and into the house, but such minor demonstrations of the world's disdain for her kind no longer wounded Lynn as they once had. She had much worse things to worry about now.

~ ~ ~

The interior of the building was strangely vacant, with not a single Imperial to be found excepting her pair of escorts. Everything was quiet and peaceful, insulated from the sounds of the raging battle outside. Had it not been for the furniture pushed to the windows in imitation of barricades, Lynn might have mistaken this for an ordinary family home after all.

"Still out on their raid, huh." The taller of the two shocktroopers shrugged, unsurprised, as he prodded Lynn forward and into a side room. Once it had been the living room, perhaps, but now it was just another ramshackle fortification. "Well, we got a treat for 'em when they come back. One Gallian uniform, as ordered, even if it's been on a dark-hair. They can wash it, but the stink'll never totally come out."

With nothing else to lose, Lynn turned bitter eyes on her captors. "Stop it. I'm as human as you are."

"Is that right?" The slap she had expected never came; instead, the shorter soldier moved behind her while the taller one leveled his submachine gun in her direction, the threat as obvious as they came. One wrong move and she would be shot. "Then let's find out how human you look under that uniform, Darcsen. I'm going to untie your hands now but I wouldn't try anything if I were you. My friend has an itchy trigger finger."

A few twists of the leather cord and Lynn's hands were released from their bonds, but she was under no illusion that she was now any closer to freedom. They were right; there was nothing she could do to escape that wouldn't end in being shot dead. The weapons shocktroopers like this carried were similar enough to her own lost gun that she knew would happen to her if she ended up on the wrong end of one.

Instead, she used the opportunity to rub feeling into her chafed wrists, knowing full well what was coming next. She would stand strong through it all. She would not give them the satisfaction of breaking a Darcsen proud of her heritage... and maybe, just maybe, they would let her live if she co-operated.

Enduring the soldier's fumbling hands was easy at first; her belt and backpack were torn from her body, then her gloves and her boots, her body moving at his command to speed along their removal. It wasn't long, however, before his hands were brushing against her breasts as they tugged at her Gallian uniform shirt and sliding across her rear as they pulled down her skirt and leggings. Every time he touched her intimate regions sent a thrill of fear along her spine, but she maintained a dignified silence and stared straight ahead at all times. 

She feigned calm, but with every inch of her flesh bared to their eyes, Lynn became less a soldier of Gallia and more an ordinary woman at the mercy of the enemy.

With their prisoner stripped down to her underwear, the duo were finally satisfied with their work. One of them collected the pieces of uniform she had shed and tossed them into a pile in the corner of the room before turning back to gaze at the unclothed Lynn, his eyes slowly tracing her exposed form. Her simple black bra and panties left her only the scarcest hint of modesty, the undergarments and her dark hair providing a startling contrast to her milk-pale skin. Lynn lowered her head, letting her eyelids fall shut to block out the sight of the leering troopers. This couldn't be happening.

"...You want to do her?" The shorter of the soldiers nudged his colleague. Lynn's heart plummeted into an abyss.

"A Darcsen? Are you insane?" The taller trooper's voice dripped with disgust. "Who knows what kind of diseases she's got? Forget it, let's just take her down to the basement for now. Let the captain decide if she dies or not."

Relief filled Lynn's heart as she was forced from the room at gunpoint, this time led down the hall towards a descending staircase. Her life still hung in the balance, but for once the prejudices of others had worked in her favor.

~ ~ ~

The basement proved to be everything Lynn had expected: dark, cold, cramped and depressing.

A sickly beam of dim sunlight was all that permeated the subterranean chamber, streaming through a barred slot at the top of the far wall that was the cellar's only window. Revealed in this pittance of illumination were stone walls stained with murk and grime, a rough-carved floor harboring streaks of dirt and a ceiling so low it almost scraped against the soldiers' helmets. Cardboard boxes, wooden crates and objects covered in tattered sheets lined the walls and cluttered the floor. A thick, musty smell filled the icy air.

"Find something to tie her up with," the taller soldier commanded the shorter, guiding the prisoner to the center of the room. Already shivering from the cold, Lynn grimaced at the notion of being restrained by the duo. She had expected it, but that was no consolation to the ghostly Darcsen woman with hardly a choice in the matter.

When the shorter soldier returned, he was carrying a handful of items he had procured from around the dingy basement; a roll of silver tape, a length of woven rope and a dirty old washcloth. There was no question in Lynn's mind as to what each of them would be used for, and she braced herself for a great deal of discomfort as he advanced on her. At least they hadn't killed her, and had no intention of taking advantage of her helplessness.

The soldier set to work at once, circling behind Lynn and yanking her arms behind her back. Lynn bit her lip as her hands were forced together, shamefully conscious of the way her breasts were forced outward by the stress of her new position and uncomfortably aware of the taller soldier's lustful gaze. She could only hope that he would not reconsider his unwillingness to force himself on her.

The Darcsen woman gasped as the rope touched her skin, pulled painfully tight as it circled her wrists and tugged her arms even further backward. Her sounds of discomfort drew a chuckle from her captor as he wound the cord around her wrists several more times, taking pleasure in every wince and wilful moan, binding her hands together so securely that Lynn could barely move them at all. She had thought the leather band from earlier was bad enough, but this would be far more difficult to slip out of.

The sound of tape being torn from the roll reminded her that they were far from done.

Lynn had not known what to anticipate, but the sensation of adhesive affixing itself to her fingers had not been near the top of any list. Unable to turn her head far enough to observe, the lovely Darcsen could only feel the pull of the tape as it worked its way around her hands, wrapping them in a cocoon of shining silver. In a matter of moments her hands were completely covered in tape from nails to wrists, bound together beneath so many unyielding layers that she knew she would never be able to claw her way out. Her fingers were utterly immobilized, curled toward her palms without the space to do so much as twitch.

The soldier with the gun nodded his admiration. "A bit over the top, but it'll do the job. Nice work, Zeltman. Now do her legs."

"You got it. Alright, dark-hair, time to get down where you belong." The shorter one gave a sloppy salute and brutally hurled Lynn to the floor. Unable to ease her descent with her cruelly bound hands, she hit the concrete hard and felt a jarring shock pulse through her slender body. Both soldiers chortled at her groan of pain, enjoying the sight of a Darcsen's woe.

Denying her even a moment to recover, the soldier named Zeltman knelt on the floor and hauled Lynn toward him by her milk-white ankles. Draping her legs across his own knees, he reached again for the roll of tape and began to apply it to the Darcsen woman's feet, binding them together as he had with her hands. This time she was able to bear witness as her toes disappeared beneath the sheath of shimmering silver, then the arches of her feet, then her heels and the ends of her shins. It was almost mesmerising to watch her body being overtaken by the adhesive cocoon, to feel her legs pressed together so tightly that they might have been one...

By the time he reached her thighs he was almost out of tape, but the job had been done better than Lynn had imagined. She could barely bend her knees, let alone walk; the notion of moving one leg independently of the other seemed laughable. The half-naked shocktrooper was completely and utterly helpless, and all it had taken was a little rope and a little tape to totally paralyse her.

It drove home the reality that she was a prisoner of war. Her survival was only likely to be a brief reprieve before execution, and even if they decided not to kill her, she would not taste freedom for a very long time. Bindings were something she would have to become used to.

Zeltman slipped out from under her tightly bound legs, letting them drop to the floor and moving further up her body. His gloved hands slipping behind Lynn's torso, he lifted her into an awkward approximation of a sitting position and seized hold of her quivering jaw. "Don't look so miserable, girl. Darcsens are meant to be slaves, not soldiers."

Lynn made ready to reply, but the moment her lips parted was the opportunity Zeltman needed to jam the dirty washcloth deep inside her mouth. 

Her jaw crammed full of the foul-tasting fabric, Lynn's words were reduced to a series of incoherent mumbles. Struggling not to choke on the disgusting washcloth, she tried to move her tongue enough to force it back through her teeth... but found her captor again too swift for her. Zeltman tore the last strip of duct tape from the roll and pressed it firmly across Lynn's lips, smoothing it across her cheeks to ensure it stuck fast. There was no way she could spit out the cloth now; she had been silenced.

"Let's see just how quiet that keeps you." Still cradling Lynn as she sat between his hips, the Imperial slipped his arm around to her chest and took her breast in the palm of his hand. The sensation made Lynn draw in a shuddering breath, rising to an agitated moan as he tightened his grip and gouged his fingers deep into her flesh. It hurt, even through her bra, but the cloth stuffed inside her mouth prevented her protest from rising above a muffled whine.

Another morbid chuckle. "Good," he growled, releasing her breast and pulling away from the captive Darcsen. "This ought to hold her. Hey, help me lift her over to that side room, would you? We can lock her in there for now."

The other soldier approached to assist Zeltman, crouching beside her and taking hold of her legs while the shorter soldier lifted her torso. Her limbs bound and wrapped with absurd quantities of stiff silver tape, Lynn was completely powerless to resist as the two Imperials carried her across the basement toward a door in the far wall. She hadn't noticed it before, half-hidden as it was behind a stack of old boxes.

They lowered her back to the floor for a moment while the taller of the duo snatched a key from a hook on the wall and inserted it into the matching hole in the door-handle. The lock clicked, allowing the Imperial to push the door open and step into the storeroom beyond...

"Hey! There's already a girl in here!"

"What?" Plainly skeptical, the soldier Zeltman stepped over Lynn and inside the room with his comrade. "Where's the... well, I'll be. Looks like another Gallian, and a proper one this time."

Dread filled Lynn's heart as she tried to peer inside the door from her place on the rugged floor. A Gallian, and a female? Could it be another member of her own unit, captured after the mortar strike that had separated the four women? Rolling into position, she scanned the dark little room beyond the legs of her captors.

It was hard to miss the pretty young girl laid out on the floor, stripped to her underwear and trussed up in ropes. Harder still not to recognize the face stained with tears and gagged with her own pink ribbon.

_Susie?_


	3. Edy

The silver-haired girl grumbled under her breath as she stumbled out of the half-collapsed building and into the pouring rain. This was no life for a starlet.

It had been almost two hours since the roof had almost collapsed on Edy Nelson and her team, scattering them in all directions and cutting them off from each other in the middle of enemy-held territory. Most of that time she had spent picking over the debris and finding her way into the previously inaccessible sections of the building, each moment filled with dread that the next thing she saw would be the corpse of a friend. In the end she hadn't been able to find any sign of Lynn, Susie or Freesia at all, but this had barely improved the feisty girl's mood. Not that she had been in much of a pleasant frame of mind ever since spending her eighteenth birthday in a mudhole of a trench.

Rather diminutive, though she would have called herself _petite_ , Edy had never quite adjusted to the life of a Gallian shocktrooper like some of her comrades. Taking orders had never quite agreed with the aspiring singer, nor had being forced to stomp around in the ugly blue uniform provided for her. It made her look too much like everyone else, and that was unacceptable to the fiery little vixen. Tying her silvery hair into twin pigtails had been a defiant attempt to stand out in the crowd, though she had grudgingly used blue ribbons to match her uniform for the job.

Now she trudged through the puddle-slick streets of Vasel, drenched once again, seeking any clue to the whereabouts of her friends. Had they left without her? The thought made Edy's blood boil, but she pushed it away in an unprecedented display of maturity. She could be angry later, when they were all safe and well.

At the very least she still had her trusty submachine gun, terror of the battlefield. Even in the hands of a girl prone to panic under fire it was an extremely deadly weapon. Surely she had nothing to fear.

~ ~ ~

The narrow side street was empty when she entered from the eastern end, but it would not remain that way for long.

Advancing through the rain and debris at a cautious pace, Edy's hopes of finding her friends were growing dimmer by the moment. Although she was sure that each of them had survived the collapse that had separated them from one another, that meant little when they were alone and surrounded by the army of the enemy. It was possible that the three women had been killed or captured since then, and even if they had not the chances of finding them in the maze that was the city of Vasel seemed slim. 

It was hard to keep up a positive attitude with nobody around to show off for, and Edy was beginning to lose hope. Perhaps, she considered, she should turn back toward friendly territory and reunite with the rest of the militia. Perhaps Lynn and Susie and Freesia had already done so themselves.

She had almost reached the end of the war-torn avenue when her path was abruptly blocked by a quartet of patrolling Imperial soldiers.

Her sharp brown eyes took in the details of the four even as her hands began to shake. They hadn't noticed her yet, but surely it would be only moments before they did. Two of them were shocktroopers, just like her, heavily armed and armored, but the third seemed to be a lightly-armored scout. The fourth, a bald hulk of a man clutching a massive anti-tank lance. A varied unit, but Edy knew she could handle them alone as long as she could control her nerves...

She ducked behind a crumbling, waist-height stone wall, the best cover she could find, planning to wait until they had gone before moving on. It was better to avoid a fight than to provoke one. Unfortunately for Edy, the eagle-eyed scout noticed the blur of movement and sounded the alarm. "Gallian at three o'clock!"

Edy cursed to herself as her one advantage was lost. There were few options open to the young starlet turned soldier; retreating would expose her to enemy fire, and attacking would do much the same. She was outnumbered, and from the sounds of their bootsteps as they fanned out around her, she was also nearly surrounded. What was she supposed to do?

The answer arrived in a flash of realization as rounded metal poked into her thigh. Of course! She had forgotten all about the ragnite grenade hooked to her belt. It would give her only one chance to turn the tide, but the explosive charge inside made the grenade a very powerful weapon. If she aimed well she could kill two, maybe three of the Imperials with it...

"Throw your weapon out here and come out with your hands in the air." A stern but oddly refined voice carried across the street to her position. An accent typically signifying one of high breeding, if Edy's past encounters with nobility were anything to go by. "You must know you cannot win. Must we spill your blood?"

Edy gritted her teeth. A star would not surrender, she knew, but triumph over adversity! "Sorry, darlings, but it's not my blood that is going to be spilled today," she snapped in return, hoping her high-pitched voice carried over the constant patter of rain on stone. Her hand gripped the handle of the ragnite grenade as she unhooked it from her belt. "You should have left me alone!"

The cultured voice of the Imperial soldier had given his position away, and Edy was not about to let the opportunity slip from her fingers. Tensing her muscles, she gripped the grenade in her leather-gloved hand and hurled it over the wall, sending it flying through the air and down the street. 

The enemy soldiers shouted in panic, but it was far too late to escape. The moment the bulb of unstable ragnite struck the pavement, it exploded in a ball of cerulean fire and ear-shattering sound. The thunderous bang shared the stage with a chorus of screams and shouts and the cracking of shredded gravel as it was scattered in all directions by the blast, mixing with the rain as it showered upon the street. 

How many had she taken down? There was only one way to be sure. Trembling from the rush of adrenaline racing through her small body, Edy peered over the top of the wall that sheltered her and examined the scene of the blast through the haze of still-clearing smoke.

It took her only a moment to confirm that two of the Imperials had been killed; the lancer and one of the shocktroopers were sprawled across the paving stones, neither moving nor breathing, their spattered blood staining the road and sidewalk crimson. The third was harder to peg; the scout was lying still on the ground, but had no visible injuries and seemed to be breathing. As for the fourth soldier...

Edy blinked. Where was he? There _had_ been a fourth, right?

A pained grunt echoed throughout the street. Edy's eyes widened as they darted about, trying to discern the location of the missing shocktrooper, but it was not until he rose over a pile of rubble to toss something at her that she noticed just where he was.

_Another grenade!_

Startled by the sudden movement, Edy ducked back behind the wall that had served as her shield and covered her ears with her thick-gloved hands. Where had it gone? She hadn't seen where it was headed, and if it landed on her side of the little barrier she would be torn to pieces in an instant...

The ragnite-fueled explosion was the last thing she perceived before she was hurled into unconsciousness.

~ ~ ~

Stahl dragged himself back to his feet, his head throbbing with the ache caused by the detonation of the Gallian grenade. 

The Imperial shocktrooper felt as if his brain had been thrown under a truck. He could hardly say how he had found the strength and the presence of mind to stand and throw his own grenade at the enemy soldier, but it had very likely saved his life. He had survived, but his body felt loose and heavy, like he had borrowed it from somebody larger, and his ears still rang from the impact.

At least he was still alive, he admitted as he surveyed the battered street. By the looks of it, one of his companions had not been so lucky. No, he corrected himself as he spotted the body of the lancer, it was two companions. His captain and the other shocktrooper had taken the full brunt of the Gallian grenade and had been killed instantly by the blast, while Stahl and his unit's scout had simply been thrown clear. The scout wasn't moving, but it appeared that he was merely unconscious. Good.

Stahl had always hated his self-righteous wretch of a captain, anyway. Yesterday's morality had no place in today's Imperial army.

But what of the Gallian? There had been no further movement from that quarter since Stahl's own grenade had exploded. Ignoring the pain pounding inside his skull, he made his way across the street to where the small stone fence had once stood.

The grenade had landed on the wrong side of the barrier to kill the enemy combatant, he observed, but it had blown the fence into a pile of jagged rubble. The actual Gallian soldier had been thrown back by the blast, shielded from the worst of the ragnite explosion by the little stone wall but knocked senseless by the flying debris. A girl, he discovered as he crouched behind the silver-haired shocktrooper, just like last time. 

Gears turned within Stahl's sadistic mind as the reality of his situation began to sink in. His interfering captain was dead. His second-in-command lay unconscious on the sidewalk. Stahl was third-in-command; if both of those above him were to die, he would be in charge of the entire squad himself. This girl, and the pretty blonde he had captured earlier, would belong to him. Only one thing would need to be done before he and his troops could do as they pleased.

Lifting his gun, he began to stride back towards the unconscious form of the Imperial scout. It was time to take his rightful place.

~ ~ ~

_What... happened...? Where am I?_

Edy's eyelids twitched as she began to climb her way back to the waking world after almost two full hours of listless slumber. The first thing her addled mind took note of was the crushing headache pounding inside her skull, drawing an aggravated groan from her lips. She didn't remember hitting her head.

Nor did she remember anything else, for that matter. She hadn't gone to bed, had she? No, no, the last thing she remembered was being on the battlefield, searching for something or someone...

"Time to wake up, sweetheart."

She started at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. Male, rough, impatient, it didn't belong to any of her squadmates or friends in the militia. What in blazes was going on? She gritted her teeth against the pain and attempted to rise, her chocolate eyes sliding open to greet this masculine stranger. If this was some sort of joke by her allies there was going to be hell to pay!

Her bravado lasted only as long as it took her to notice three facts about her new situation. The first was the identity of the owner of the mysterious voice; a figure dressed in slate grey standing over her, his face obscured by his helmet's visor. An Imperial shocktrooper, she realized as her memory of the battle began to return. She must have been knocked out during the fight...

The second fact was little better. Her attempts to rise from the hard concrete floor ended in miserable failure, and it took Edy a long moment to comprehend that her body was almost completely immobilized. Though she could not see all of the details for herself from her current position, it was obvious that the shocktrooper had been very busy while his prisoner slept. Edy's arms had been forced together horizontally behind her back, wrists to elbows, and bound so tightly that she could not so much as separate them, let alone wriggle out of the coarse hempen rope. Her legs were tied together at ankle and knee by more of the same rough cord, knotted out of reach on the underside, leaving her unable to do much more than squirm around helplessly.

The third fact was the worst of them all. Trussing Edy up hadn't been the only thing the enemy soldier had done to her while she was unconscious, she noticed with growing horror as she surveyed her captive body...

The fiendish bastard had stripped her almost naked! The mortifying discovery made Edy's face burn scarlet. Her Gallian uniform had been stolen, each and every item from her boots to her trousers to her snug black undershirt removed while she was unable to resist. Only a cornflower-blue brassiere remained to cover her modest chest, adorned by a frivolous array of frills and ribbons, while a matching pair of knickers hid her most intimate regions from view.

Not that she was grateful for the concessions to her modesty in the slightest; most of her body was still on full display. The masked soldier was ogling her even now, his eyes tracing her slender legs and shapely torso through the visor of his helmet as she squirmed within her unforgiving bonds. It was all too much for the silver-haired vixen, boiling with anger even as she shuddered in humiliation. "What is this!? Let me go! Let me go _this instant!_ "

Callous laughter was the soldier's reply as he stared down at his helpless captive. "Do you even know where you are, girl? You're in the Empire's custody now. A prisoner of war. You don't have any say in what happens to you anymore. Your Gallian friends can't help you here."

Where was _here_? Edy looked around, for the first time seeing something other than her captor or her own bound body. The room in which she lay appeared to be a basement, all stone and concrete, with precious little light shining through the single tiny window the only illumination to be found. Crates, boxes and shrouding sheets were everywhere, the messy remnants of its previous occupants. There was but one door visible, at the top of a staircase she could not hope to climb in this state.

The realization that she was trapped did little to dampen her fire. "What have you done with my clothes?! You can't treat me like this! There are rules!"

"The Empire doesn't play by your rules, girl, and she had dire need of your uniform. It's not as if you'll need it anymore." The soldier crouched beside her, bringing his shielded face close to hers. "Here you live by _my_ rules, and my rules are a lot more fun, especially for a pretty girl like you. The Gallian army is just full of hot women, isn't it? Already caught a cute blonde earlier, perhaps the two of you could get... acquainted?"

 _A blonde girl?_ He could have been talking about anyone, but there was not a shred of doubt in Edy's whirling mind that it was Susie Evans, her childishly naive squadmate. _They caught her, too? Ugh, I shouldn't be surprised..._

Fury burned in her dark brown eyes as she glared up at the shocktrooper, tugging hard against the coils of rope keeping her arms pinned together behind her back. The discomfort of being forced to hold this contorted pose was only magnified by the feel of the cords cutting into her bare skin, but to give up escaping her bonds felt like surrender. "You're a filthy pervert! When I get out of this, I'm gonna punch your face in!"

The trooper laughed again as he stood, making his way across the room to a pile of crates stacked against the wall. "I wouldn't bother making plans for after you're free, girl, 'cause you're not going to need them. Now, let's see how the blonde chick has been holding up in my absence."

There was a second door behind the crates, Edy realized as the soldier began to shift them out of the way. Was this where he was keeping his other prisoner? She craned her neck from her place on the floor, trying to catch a glimpse of the other unfortunate girl he had captured. It had to be Susie. At least she wouldn't be completely alone down here. Strange as it felt to the abrasive young starlet, seeing the face of her silly pacifist comrade would bring her some comfort even in the enemy's clutches.

With the last of the boxes moved out of the way, her Imperial captor opened the door and stepped into the side room, the darkness within providing a cloak to obscure him from Edy's sight. Gritting her teeth in frustration, Edy craned her neck in an attempt to see further into the room. Was it Susie or wasn't it?!

A moment later the soldier's voice floated through the basement, shocked and disbelieving.

"Where the hell did this dark-hair come from?!"

~ ~ ~

The rain had stopped in the city of Vasel, but it seemed as if the constant sound of falling shells and roaring guns would never end.

Freesia York watched the Imperial troopers as they carried the unconscious form of Edy Nelson into the two-story house that they had converted into a base of operations. It pained her to let the heartless invaders take the fiery little shocktrooper into their lair without lifting a finger to save her, but she knew that alone there was nothing she could do.

She would need to find help. There was no choice but to attempt to return to friendly territory without her three comrades and inform Lieutenant Gunther and the command staff. Wherever Lynn and Susie had gone, finding them would have to wait.

The alluring young dancer slipped into the shadows.


	4. Freesia

How long had she wandered this horrid place?

Cursing whoever had designed the winding streets and uniformly grey buildings of the maze-like city of Vasel, the last free member of Edy's team of four hastened back toward the safety of the Gallian battlelines. Their plan had failed, and the four had now become one.

The riverside metropolis was almost foreign territory to Freesia York, despite being Gallian born and bred. Until her enlistment with the militia she had spent her life in the country's vast deserts, wandering the scorching sands in her career as a traveling entertainer, never setting foot in any place bigger than a small ragnite mining settlement. Here, forced to roam this lifeless city beneath a rainstorm that never seemed to stop, Freesia was out of her element.

Lost, she had to admit as she stumbled around a corner and into what had once been a busy business district when Vasel was more than a warzone. It had been over an hour since she had last seen another living soul, her comrade Edy and the Imperials holding her captive. Which way led back to the Gallian lines again? Which would take her deeper into the Empire's claws?

The dancer sighed in frustration, kicking at a loose bit of rubble with her heavy uniform boot, catching her breath and gathering her thoughts. She was tall and graceful, her light brown skin marking her apart from the pale-skinned city dwellers of Gallia, a mess of thick black hair constantly falling across her comely face and clumped loosely into a ponytail at the back of her head. 

This was no place for a lady of the sands, she told herself as she pressed onward into the street, her scout's rifle at the ready. This was no life for her, slogging through the murk of a battlefield, cooped up in this uniform. Yet she couldn't just run away and leave it all while Edy was in danger. Despite the mouth on the silver-haired starlet, she had grown on Freesia over their time in the squad together. For the first time that was not chiefly for herself, Freesia answered when duty called.

For the longest time it seemed as if she were alone in the city, an illusion only marred by the sounds of constant exchange of gunfire in the background. There was nobody in sight as she traveled down the shattered street, gun at the ready. No Susie or Lynn, no other members of her squad or other Gallian soldiers. No Imperials, either. Not so much as a corpse. It was eerie, sending a ghastly shiver down Freesia's spine as she trudged through the water-slick road.

It was when she reached the end of the road and emerged into a civic park that she finally saw signs of life. Three soldiers were on the move, wearing the subdued blue uniforms of the Gallian militia. She couldn't see their squad numbers from this distance, but to Freesia such details weren't important. What mattered was that there was finally someone who could get her back on track! She called to them and waved, running in their direction as fast as her legs would carry her.

The trio seemed surprised to encounter her, but waited for her to catch up to them. All of them were male, Freesia noticed as she skidded to a halt before them. Their uniforms made plain their functions in battle - two shocktroopers and a scout, frontline troops all - but they seemed slightly ill-fitting to the dancer's trained eye. It was a shame the army didn't look after the troops as well as they should sometimes, she reflected as she put on her brightest smile. They were pretty good-looking, too...

"Good to see some friendly faces," she chirped, wiping her brow clean of sweat and rainwater. It wouldn't do to look less than her best in front of her trio of handsome saviours. "Hey, I _really_ need some help. I've lost the rest of my group, and I know our leader's been taken by the Imps. I guess you're probably on your own assignment but can you give me some help? I can't just leave her there. Or point me towards our camp?"

The three soldiers said nothing, merely exchanging glances between themselves. Freesia crossed her arms, grimacing in annoyance. She did _not_ like being ignored. "Uh, hello? Look, if it helps I'm Freesia York, scout, Militia Squad 7. My commanding officer is Lieutenant Gunther. I really don't have time to be sitting around while-"

She quieted suddenly, her frown deepening as she cast her eyes over the trio's uniforms. They _were_ ill-fitting, just as she had first surmised, but now she was close enough to observe them in detail. Each uniform bore a patch sewn into the left shoulder, revealing the squad to which the wearer belonged, completely normal procedure within the Gallian militia. However, these three soldiers... all of their patches bore the number 7.

Freesia was a member of Squad 7, yet she had never seen these men before in her life.

Something was very wrong here. Her finger inched towards the trigger of her rifle, and she began to edge away from the trio. "Okay, j-just... just f-forget it," she stammered, her pitiful attempt at remaining casual quickly unravelling. "I'm sure you've got your own mission to take care of. I'll just be..."

She saw the predatory gleam in their eyes, and she reacted. Her reflexes were exceptional from her career as a dancer, not to mention her militia training and experience. Her rifle swung up in a blur of brown and silver, her finger slipping into place about the trigger, ready to fire.

Three submachine guns rose simultaneously, their muzzles pointed directly at her chest. Imperial models, all. "Don't even think about it."

Freesia did not relent for a moment, though her heart pounded in her chest and her stomach had plummeted into an abyss. "Nice try, Imps," she growled, armouring herself with feigned confidence. "But not good enough. Game over."

"You really think so?" The trooper dressed in Gallian scout's garb let a smirk slide across his stubble-ridden face. "Go on, shoot one of us. See where it gets you. A dinky little rifle like that, we'll survive what it can dish out. But these... you know how they work, right?"

She did. A shocktrooper's weapon, the submachine gun would rip her apart with ease should she provoke them too far, let alone three of such weapons. Her position was more than tenuous, but surrender was hardly an option if she were to help Edy. "I could shoot you in the head, you know. I'm a pretty good shot."

"Then what?" The response was quick and savage as lightning. "Do the math, little lady. This ends in you captured or dying, whether you shoot or not. Even you can see that. Just put down your damned gun already so we can get this over with."

What choice was there? They were right about everything. There was nowhere to run, and no way she could kill them all before they shot her dead where she stood. It was almost unthinkable for the free-spirited dancer, but she didn't want to die in a place like this. There was still so much for her to do with her life. It couldn't end here...

She lowered her weapon to the grass and let them do as they pleased.

~ ~ ~

"The infiltration team caught us another one, Captain Stahl," the lancer called as he guided Freesia down the stairway and into the depths of the basement.

They had not treated her kindly, the Imperials dressed in the uniforms of Gallians or the properly dressed Imperials in whose custody she had been placed. Her own uniform had been taken away from her, and they had offered her no replacement clothing, but that was not truly that was bothering the beautiful dancer. The Gallian uniform had been a suffocating sack worthy of a nun compared the the revealing garb she had worn during her performing days, a skimpy collection of silks and veils designed to inflame the passons of the men who watched her. The maroon-red panties and bra she wore beneath her service gear were all she had left to protect her modesty, but showing a little skin had never been one of her inhibitions.

Being tied up... now _that_ was something Freesia had problems with. She had to admit they had done little enough, merely crossing her wrists behind her back and binding them together with thick strips of cloth, but for a girl who prized her freedom so highly she might as well have been locked up in chains. At least it beat getting shot.

She had thought herself prepared for anything, but what she found waiting in the dingy, closed-in basement made her deep brown eyes widen in shock. Three women were arrayed before her, each one of them was a familiar face, and each one had been stripped to their underwear just like her, seated on wooden dining chairs and bound in varying ways. 

Closest to the staircase was Susie Evans. The naive blonde girl was a wreck, her slender limbs encircled in rope at her wrists and elbows, ankles and knees. She had clearly been crying, though now she was silent, perhaps aided by the cloth stuffed inside her mouth. Her own ribbon had been used to gag her, and a few tufts of greying cloth could be seen deeper inside her jaw.

In the center sat the Darcsen woman known as Lynn. Her pale skin was sheathed in a cocoon of thick silver tape, her legs completely covered in the stuff from her feet to her thighs without even an inch of skin showing. Likewise, her arms had been fastened behind her back, her hands balled into tight fists and wrapped in so much tape that her fingers were rendered utterly useless. A wide strip of tape across her lips formed an effective gag, her cheeks slightly puffed suggesting something had been forced inside of her mouth.

Last of all was Edy Nelson herself. Much like Susie, the silver-haired spitfire had been trussed up in ropes, her hands secured behind her and her legs fastened together. Her bonds seemed stricter than the blonde's, constricting her arms into a tight box shape, but she was the only one of the three women who had not been gagged. "Freesia," she groaned as she laid eyes on the newest prisoner of war, her usual vitality absent from her voice. "Not you too..."

"You're just in time, lovely lady number four." An Imperial shocktrooper stood before the Gallian trio, looking back at Freesia. Stahl, the lancer had named him. His face was concealed behind his helmet, but already Freesia was getting a very bad feeling from him. Worse than anyone else she had ever met. "I'd offer you a seat, but I'm afraid they're all taken. I _can_ offer you some tighter bindings, though, seeing as Gustav appears to have neglected this area. Bring her over here, if you please."

The brute of a lancer grunted, his meaty hand clamping down on Freesia's shoulder as he guided her towards the shocktrooper and forced her to kneel on the floor next to Edy's chair. Her bare knees scraped against the concrete, the cold surface sending a chill through her lithe body. Just when she had started to warm up from having her soaking wet uniform taken off, Freesia sighed to herself. Comfort, she supposed, was not the lot of a prisoner of war.

"Hold her down," Stahl instructed, moving across the basement to a tool-cluttered workbench nestled in a corner of the subterranean chamber. Freesia bit her lip as a massive hand clapped onto her left shoulder to match the one resting on her right. This was going to get very uncomfortable.

She could feel the eyes of her comrades all watching her, and her gaze rose to meet theirs in turn, taking in Edy's barely restrained fury, Susie's quivering fright and Lynn's utter misery. She had known that this was hardly a good situation for her, but the sight made Freesia realize with a start just how bad this was getting. Their entire unit was here in this basement. There was unlikely to be any rescue coming for a long time...

When Stahl returned from the workbench, he was carrying a serrated knife as long as his boot and a handful of long, thin strips made of black plastic. Freesia could not help cringing; she did not know exactly how this was going to work, but she had a very good idea of where this was going. 

The knife was the first to see use; Stahl handed it to the lancer as the two switched places, the shocktrooper crouching behind the kneeling Freesia. "I'm going to untie her hands for a moment. Make sure she doesn't do anything stupid, Gustav."

The hulking lancer was quick to comply. While Stahl sorted through his collection of cable ties, Gustav seized hold of Freesia's raven-black ponytail with one hand and brought the jagged edge of the knife close to the lovely dancer's throat with the other. The threat could not have been more obvious; the pain racing through Freesia's scalp from the wrenching hold on her hair was nothing in comparison. She had no desire to die like that, so she bit her tongue as Stahl set to work behind her.

True to his word, the first thing he did was to remove the cloth strips binding Freesia's hands behind her back. The thick material had pinned her wrists together, one crossed over the other, and despite several attempts she had not been able to work her way out of the tight knots. Stahl, however, required mere moments to untangle the web his minion had woven, releasing Freesia's wrists in little more than an eye-blink. Still wary of the knife so perilously close to her throat, Freesia fought off the urge to rub feeling back into her wrists and simply waited for what she knew was coming.

Stahl did not disappoint. Forcing her hands back together, this time palm to palm, he looped the first strip of plastic around her wrists and slipped the tail of the cable tie through the ratchet at the opposite end. He pulled on the tail, dragging it further through the ratchet, slowly constricting the plastic loop around Freesia's limbs. The dancer winced at the harsh rasping sound that didn't seem to end, aware that her captor was deliberately dragging out the process to maximize her discomfort.

She let out an involuntary yelp as the cable tie contracted further, pressing her hands firmly together and biting deep into her delicate flesh. Stahl only chuckled at Freesia's distress and continued to tighten the loop, not ceasing until the devious little strip of plastic could be constricted no further around the lovely scout's wrists. She was quick to test her bonds, hoping her natural flexibility would serve her well, but all she earned for her trouble was a thread of pain cutting further into her skin. Twisting out of this would take time, and it was going to hurt.

"No luck, huh, beautiful?" Stahl's words were almost sympathetic, but his tone conveyed only dark amusement at Freesia's plight. "Well, it's only going to get worse. You Gallians really should have just rolled over and let us have your precious little country."

Another of the cruel plastic bands began to close around her arms, this time around her elbows. Freesia hissed her discomfort as Stahl constricted this second loop, her upper arms being forced closer and closer together by the moment, tugging them further behind her back. Her shoulders protested this new restriction, the daggers of pain shooting down her arms drawing an anguished groan from the lovely young dancer. Even her body was not supposed to bend this way. "Please... stop," she gasped, desperately casting her gaze anywhere but at her three chair-bound comrades. For Edy and Susie and Lynn to see her like this, begging for mercy so easily...

"Suppose I'd best not break your arms," Stahl conceded, leaving the bonds as they lay. The vice-like hold on Freesia's elbows did not relent, nor did the sensation of burning blades tearing at her muscles ease, but neither did they become any worse. "Not yet, anyway," the shocktrooper added with another morbid chuckle. "Gustav, you can leave us now. I can take things from here."

There was disappointment in the giant lancer's eyes as he withdrew the knife from Freesia's throat, but he obeyed the orders of his superior without question. Giving Stahl a rather clumsy salute, he placed the knife back on the workbench in the corner and returned to the staircase, ascending out of sight. One less Imperial wretch in the basement should have made Freesia feel better, but somehow it only swelled her mounting dread.

"What do you even plan to do with us?" The pain in her arms was beginning to fray Freesia's temper as well as her nerves, reflected in the sharp tone she took. "There are rules, you know. About what you're allowed to do with prisoners of war."

"And like I already told your silver-haired little friend, I don't give a porcavian's ass what the rules are. You and the rest of your slutty little band are Imperial property now." As if to prove his point Stahl let his hands wander down to Freesia's bared hips, squeezing her firm thighs with a merciless grip. Freesia choked back a curse at his touch, squirming fruitlessly against the zip ties binding her arms and wrists. Damn it, was he going to...?

"Now, let's see about getting these sexy legs of yours nice and secure." His hands withdrew from her thighs after what had seemed like an hour, but this was scarcely a reprieve for the desert-dwelling dancer. One savage shove to the shoulder was all that was needed to send the kneeling Freesia toppling to the floor, crying out in pain and shock as her body hit the cold, hard concrete floor. Stahl ignored her yelping, taking the opportunity to seize her legs and force them together at the knee. 

The inevitable followed; a third cable tie was snatched up from the floor and wrapped around her unresisting thighs, tightened until it could constrict no more. He relished the way the thin plastic dug furrows into her pale brown flesh and the sight of her biting her trembling lip. He had total power over this girl, and all three of the others he and his men - _his_ men - had captured. The beautiful, weepy blonde, the annoying silver-haired pipsqueak and the quiet Darcsen wench.

Yes, he assured himself as he forced Freesia's ankles to cross and reached for another cable tie, it was good to be in command.


	5. Reunion

Susie Evans gulped in a lungful of air as the filthy cloth was removed from her mouth, cast to the basement floor along with the silk ribbon that had held it inside her jaw. 

Running her tongue around the inside of her mouth to restore the moisture she had lost, the lovely blonde scout kept a wary eye on the wandering hand of her Imperial captor as it threatened to descend upon her barely-clothed chest. Tied up so securely that she could barely move a muscle and forced to sit on a chair beside her comrades, she knew that she was helpless to resist Stahl no matter what he did to her barely-clothed body. It frightened her how quickly she had become used to wearing only her pink panties and bra before this cruel man, her Gallian uniform stolen from her to aid the enemy war effort.

In the end Stahl decided not to molest the naive Susie just yet, his gaze wandering back to the Darcsen woman seated in the chair next to hers. Lynn was just as unclothed, stripped down to her simple black underwear, but the pale-skinned woman with the blue-black hair had managed to maintain her composure despite the discomfort of being bound in thick silver tape. Her legs were covered in the stuff, pinned together from toe to knee, and her hands were held behind her back by a second cocoon of silver that forced her fingers to fold into useless fists. Her gag had been removed, just like Susie’s, leaving all four women now able to speak.

None of the shamed quartet seemed ready just yet.

Stahl loomed over Lynn, still clad in full shocktrooper armor, his eyes boring into hers through the slot in his helmet's faceplate. "Now, this is the part where you start telling me everything you know about the Gallian war effort in Vasel,” he growled, voice echoing inside his helm. "Your plans, your formation, everything. I want to hear it all, and it’s in your best interests to cooperate. If you don’t... I may have to get a little rough with you." 

His hand shot out like lightning, clamping around Lynn's breast and squeezing ferociously. She gritted her teeth against the sudden spike of pain, the cup of her brassiere barely mitigating the advance of his digging fingers, and forced herself to stare unflinchingly at the wall of the basement. It hurt, but she would not give him the pleasure of crying out.

"Leave her alone!" The high-pitched voice of Edy Nelson interrupted his prodding of the helpless Darcsen. The silver-haired singer was no better off than the others, bound tightly with ropes at every limb and clad only in her frilly blue underthings, but she was not one to be cowed so easily. "Grow a spine, you despicable coward! What sort of man treats even the enemy like this!?"

"The sort of man who always gets what he wants." Just as Edy had hoped, her taunts had caused Stahl to abandon his abuse of poor Lynn... but rather than be lured into moving on to her, the Imperial crouched over the prone form of the fourth member of the team. The only woman not seated in a wooden chair, Freesia York was left to languish on the concrete floor, bound in plastic cable ties at her ankles, knees, wrists and elbows. She too had been left to wear only her maroon-red underwear, the chill of the floor seeping into her body through light brown skin left uncovered, but the fight had not gone out of her yet.

Freesia glared venom at their masked captor as his gloved hands caressed the curves of her rear, biting her lip to suppress her groan of dismay. "You're wasting your time," she hissed as his finger teased the waistband of her panties, plucking and tugging but never quite slipping inside. "I'll never tell you anything. None of us will."

"Oh, I'm sure one of you will _crack_." Stahl's finger traced the cleft between her buttocks through her panties, drawing a gasp of shock from the beautiful dancer's lips. She pulled against the zip-ties binding her arms together, her desperation growing, but they held fast and buried themselves deeper into her skin as punishment. The cruel bonds tolerated no resistance.

Tears welling in her pale blue eyes, Susie could not stand to watch her comrade cringing from Stahl’s touch any longer. "Please don't do this to us,” she begged, her voice a strained whisper. “It isn't right. We're just soldiers. We don't know anything. I-if I knew, I'd... I'd tell you..."

"Susie, be quiet!" Edy snapped, turning toward her blonde cohort as best as the ropes binding her would allow. Her arms were tied together across her back, each wrist fastened to its opposing elbow so securely that she could not hope to break free. Her eyes blazed with a fury she had intended to direct towards their captor, but now it was aimed at poor Susie. "Let me handle this! I am the leader, and I say nobody is going to give him any-"

"So _you're_ the leader?" Suddenly very interested in Edy, Stahl released Freesia and moved to stand by the silver-haired vixen's side. "They seriously put an angry little thing like you in charge of a unit? I had thought it would be the Darcsen." His finger grazed against her thigh, slowly trailing upward along her hips and her stomach until it reached the lower edge of her breast. He was barely touching her, but it was enough to make Edy shudder in disgust. "I suppose _that's_ why you all ended up captured so easily."

She bared her teeth at that, her mounting rage driving her to squirm against her ropes. “Don’t touch me, you pervert!” she shrieked, venting her anger the only way she could. “And don’t act like you’re a better soldier than me! It was four against one, and you know it!” Her pride would not allow her to submit to captivity meekly, though there was little she could do to unbind herself. Her fingers could not reach the knots, but at least they weren’t balled up in tape like Lynn’s hands had been. She didn’t know how the Darcsen shocktrooper could stand it; it would have driven Edy mad."

“You think it makes a difference?” Stahl was unaffected by her words, unmoved by her demand. His finger began to trace the strap of Edy’s brassiere, gradually sliding up towards her neck. “All’s fair in love and war, as you Gallians say, and this is a war. I won, you lost, and now you are going to pay for it.”

Edy felt his thumb slip under her bra strap, teasing the elastic, trying to draw a reaction from her. She swallowed hard and fixed her eyes on the wall behind him, her fiery spirit dwindling to embers. The bastard was right, damn him. She had failed her team when it mattered the most, and now they were all in his clutches.

Stahl did not relent, enjoying the way she withered under his touch. “Oh, the things I’m going to do to you,” he purred, dragging the bra strap toward the edge of Edy’s shoulder. “Or perhaps I’ll start with your team, see just how far I can push them before they break... with you watching every moment of torment, of course...”

The door leading back into the house creaked open, and the bear-like Imperial lancer who had served as Freesia’s escort stepped onto the landing. “Sir!”

Muttering curses under his breath, Stahl swiftly returned Edy’s brassiere to its proper place and rounded on his subordinate, exasperated by the untimely interruption. “What is it now, Gustav? I am still interrogating the prisoners.”

“The Gallian army has begun to withdraw,” Gustav reported, snapping a belated salute to his newly installed superior. “Command has ordered us to consolidate our position and prepare for an advance in a day’s time. All prisoners of war are to be transferred to the temporary internment camp no later than 23:00 hours.”

Relief filled the hearts of all four women at this, though it quickly faded as each realized that this would likely not improve their dire situation much. Lynn in particular felt a yawning void of fear open inside her stomach, for as a Darcsen she would be fortunate if she were only treated like dirt in the hands of the Empire’s bigoted sons. There was an excellent chance that they would simply kill her for the sin of being born a member of the hated ‘dark-hair ’race; compared to that, the idea of being tied up and molested by this cruel soldier didn’t seem so bad. Edy, Susie and Freesia seemed little happier than she, as the prospect of being placed under much greater security took hold in their minds. Freedom was looking far away indeed.

Stahl seemed no happier at the prospect of his fun being taken away by his superiors. “Soon,” he answered, his sullen voice ringing through his helmet. Excuses were already forming in his mind. “Command can have them when I am finished. They may still have information that could be useful to us, and I don’t want them getting lost in the masses of Gallian prisoners we have surely taken. For now, these girls stay here. Understood?”

“...Yes, sir.” Gustav hesitated before answering, but he showed no outward sign of dissent. “What would you have us do, sir?”

“Hmm. I want you to take...” Stahl’s gaze returned to the four Gallian women, studying each of them in turn. “Take the silver-haired one... and the Darcsen into the upstairs bathroom. Gag them. I shall join you shortly, after I take care of the other two.” 

_Take care of?_ Both Susie and Freesia went rigid at that, fearing the worst. Freesia put on her brave face, trying to feign calm for Susie’s sake, but already she could see the tears forming in the blonde’s pale eyes once again. That girl had never been cut out for war, the dancer knew. None of them had, not really, but it was worse for the naive country girl who loathed violence so much. It was almost pitiful to watch her heart sink, but her terror wasn’t doing wonders for the morale of the other three women.

“What are you going to do to us!?” Edy’s spark was rekindled by the sight of the scout’s miserable tears, blazing as bright as ever, but it did nothing to help her situation. Gustav approached the silver-haired singer’s chair, heedless of her shrill squeaks of protest, and scooped her rope-bound into his burly arms like a groom might carry his bride. His grip was far too strong to squirm out of, and she had no idea what she would do if she even managed it.

“You’ll see.” Stahl stooped to collect Freesia in the very same manner. The brown-skinned dancer proved heavier than her diminutive colleague, but with her limbs constricted by cable ties at every joint she was unable to resist as her captor began to carry her towards the storeroom at the other side of the basement. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Gustav hauling Edy in the opposite direction, heading for the stairs leading back up to the house. The four, reunited as captives, were already being separated again and there was not a thing that any of them could do about it.

~ ~ ~

Lynn shuddered as her bare skin touched the cold linoleum of the bathroom floor. “Why did you bring us here?”

“Captain’s orders.” Gustav’s normally stoic features wrinkled in disgust as he addressed the Darcsen woman he had been forced to carry. The contempt in his eyes was nothing new to Lynn, for she had seen it in the eyes of countless other people during her twenty years in of life in Gallia. Classmates at school, people in the street, even fellow members of the militia, though thankfully none in her own squad. So many people viewed her as subhuman simply because she was born of another race... and now she was in the hands of a man who just might kill her for it. She nodded in response to his non-answer and decided to remain silent, awaiting her fate on the floor of the white-tiled bathroom.

Her deep blue eyes caught Edy’s brown. The silver-haired starlet had been dumped on the floor beside her, or rather Lynn had been placed beside Edy. The Darcsen shocktrooper had been the last one to leave the main basement, Stahl having already removed Freesia and Susie before she was taken upstairs by Gustav. In the back of her mind Lynn wondered if she would ever see the two scouts again, but first and foremost her thoughts were concerned with her own prospects and Edy’s. From the fearful stare the younger girl had fixed on her as they lay side by side, she could hardly imagine that they were good.

They were still bound, of course. Edy in rope, Lynn in tape, both of them helpless to do anything but squirm around on the floor. The position that Edy’s arms had been forced into looked unnecessarily painful, Lynn noticed; tied elbow to wrist behind the starlet’s torso, forcing her shoulders to strain backward to accommodate the cruel arrangement. It made Lynn grateful that the man named Stahl had not been the one to capture her as well, though having her own limbs wrapped up in thick silver tape was hardly a comfortable experience either. Her hands were still curled into fists behind her back, cocooned in layer after layer of the tape to make it impossible to unclench them and use her fingers. Her legs were likewise covered in the stuff, from toes to thighs, making her seem almost a perverse sort of mermaid. She was immobilized as much as any of the others.

Gustav remained with them in the bathroom for all of a minute before apparently growing restless, stepping over Lynn and out into the second floor hallway. “Wait there,” he grunted as he moved further down the hall, out of their sight. As if they could have left.

The two women were alone, but it was a while before either of them would speak to the other. At first both of them devoted their time to escaping their humiliating restraints, but neither of them could find any slack or spot any convenient sharp object to aid them in slicing through their bonds. Edy’s hands, while not balled up in tape like Lynn’s, were unable to reach the knots in her ropes and had little hope of peeling enough of the endless adhesive off of her comrade’s skin before the lancer came back. There was nowhere to flee to; neither of them rated their chances of navigating the stairs alone very highly, and the house was still crawling with Imperial soldiers. They were unsupervised, but infuriatingly just as helpless as before.

“Lynn... I’m sorry.” It was Edy who broke the silence, her normally vibrant voice little more than a defeated whimper. The silver-haired girl had not stopped struggling against her ropes, but Lynn could see how deeply they were digging into her flesh. “This is my fault. I shouldn’t have been the one to lead the unit, I knew you were the better soldier...”

“Stop it.” Lynn glared at her, staring her down, daring her to defy the Darcsen’s gentle but firm words. “Talking like that doesn’t help us, Edy. We need to come up with a plan, and we need to do it now.” She began to edge closer, the tape wrapping her body rasping on the linoleum floor. “Did you see where-”

She cut herself off, her eyes going wide. Both of them could hear the thumping footsteps coming along the hall, and moments later Gustav appeared in the doorway, carrying a handful of colorful cloths. Had he raided one of the abandoned bedrooms in this place?

Both Lynn and Edy cringed as they simultaneously remembered the other order that Stahl had given his hulking underling. _Gag them_ , he had said. Casting a suspicious eye upon the items in Gustav’s grip, Lynn noted with relief that they at least appeared to be clean, unlike the washcloth that the soldiers who had captured her earlier had stuffed inside her mouth. Even the memory of how that disgusting thing had tasted made her want to retch.

Gustav crouched beside Lynn, wasting no time in selecting a wadded pair of socks from his collection and pressing it against her lips. “Open,” he growled without ceremony. 

There was no choice in the matter. Opening her mouth wide, Lynn let him push the thick ball of cotton inside her jaw until not a single thread remained outside her lips, then continued to hold still as he pulled a glossy purple scarf between her teeth to hold the socks inside. He wrapped it twice around her head, passing through her mouth each time, the taut silken cloth biting cruelly into the corners of her lips and forcing them to close around the makeshift gag. She cried out as he savagely knotted the scarf behind her head, but the sound was stifled by the already soaked socks wedged inside her mouth. No, this wasn’t as disgusting as the washcloth, but it was certainly as effective in silencing her.

Edy watched Lynn’s gagging with discomfort, knowing full well that she was going to be next. “Are you enjoying this, you sick bastard?” she demanded as Gustav abandoned the Darcsen woman and knelt beside her, cherishing this last chance to use the voice she loved so much. “Is this what you joined the army for? Manhandling helpless women? What a brave, strong man you are. I’ll bet the Empire is proud of- mrrrgh!“

Her tirade was ended by the introduction of a rolled-up pair of socks to her mouth. A spiteful little smile upon his cracked lips, Gustav forced the wadded bundle deep inside Edy’s jaw, muffling the squeaks of incandescent rage attempting to escape the silver-haired girl’s throat. A white silk scarf was stretched between her teeth, just as he had done with Lynn, tugged behind her head to tauten the fabric and prevent Edy from working the socks back out of her mouth. After another revolution of her head, he tied a tight knot in back to hold the scarf in place. It was done.

Both girls lay still as Gustav stood once again, each trying to force the socks back out of their mouths with their tongues. It was no good; neither could budge the moistened balls of cloth that were trapped inside their jaws, nor could they make any sounds through their gags but strangled whimpers. Lynn quickly accepted this new limitation on herself and gave up on working the cotton footwear out of her mouth, but stubborn Edy wasn’t about to let herself be beaten again. She howled into the wadded packing, screaming herself hoarse, putting every bit of piercing volume in her lungs to the task of expressing her fury through the stale-tasting gag.

Lynn would have sighed in annoyance had she been able. All Edy was going to accomplish was wearing herself out. Closing her eyes and trying to block out the sounds of her comrade’s muffled rage, her mind began to wander. What was going to happen to them now? Why did Stahl send them to the bathroom of all places? 

What had become of Freesia and Susie?


	6. Divided

The storeroom was less than half the size of the basement proper, claustrophobic and cold as the grave. Just as dark, as well, for in here there was no convenient window to allow passage to the fading sunlight, their sole connection to the outside world. The only illumination was granted by an old, rusted ragnite lamp that had been placed upon one of the room’s many shelves by their masked captor, the pale blue light painting all that they could see in an eerie, glowing shroud. Soon, they knew, it would be gone and they would have only darkness to comfort them. 

Still bound in cable ties hand and foot, the damned things cutting burning grooves into her arms and her legs, Freesia was helpless to rise from her place on the icy concrete floor. There was very little that she _could_ do; the bindings were simply too tight and too cruel, pinning her wrists behind her back and her legs firmly together. She had not yet been gagged, but what use was talking going to do her now? She could hardly persuade her captors to let her go, and she knew no secrets that could buy her freedom.

A pained cry broke into her thoughts as Susie was dropped to the floor beside her. She had been powerless to break her own fall, bound securely in ropes as she was, but Stahl had not a care for the country girl’s safety or well-being. They were both toys to him, stripped down to their underwear for him and his minions to gawk at and occasionally grope. They were prisoners of war, and so they meant nothing.

The shocktrooper slipped off his leather gloves for the first time, then sank to his knees and pulled Susie upright, forcing the blonde girl’s strictly bound arms to rest against his armored chest. His bare hand wandered to her breast, sliding beneath the underwire of her bra and cupping her breast in his grip, drawing a tearful gasp from his lovely victim. She was crying again now, shaking with sobs as Stahl crushed her soft flesh between his fingers, pinching her nipple to make her squeal... 

“Leave her alone, you son of a bitch!” Freesia thrashed against her restraints, heedless of the pain, her heart breaking for her naive comrade. “She told you she doesn’t know anything! She’s just a private, like me, so get the hell off her!”

”Hmph.” Giving Susie’s nipple one final squeeze, Stahl dropped her back to the floor and loomed over the rebellious dancer. Rolling her onto her back, he lowered himself onto her body, his heavily-armored form straddling her half-naked one. He was not putting all of his weight onto her, but enough of it to make her groan. “You girls must be close, huh? Defending her like this when you know it’ll only bring me down on you instead.”

Freesia flinched as he plucked at strands of her thick black hair, tugging them loose of her ponytail one by one. “I can look after myself,” she grunted, her nostrils filling with the scent of metal and leather. “Susie can’t, but that doesn’t mean she’s useful to you.”

An eyebrow rose behind Stahl’s visor. “But you are?” he murmured, tearing away the band that had held her ponytail together and releasing the last stubborn length of her midnight hair. “Are you telling me that you know something?”

“Maybe I do.” Her brown eyes gleamed a challenge. If Freesia could protect poor Susie by capturing Stahl’s attention herself, she would do so; after all, beguiling and manipulating men with her wiles was a specialty of hers. “Like I said, I’m just a private, but our squad commander and I share... many things.” _Sorry, Welkin._

Stahl chuckled at this. “Is that right? So you’ve got some useful intel, but you’re a tough girl... and desperate to stop me hurting your cute little friend. Can you see where I’m going with this?” His helmet obscured his mouth, but Freesia was suddenly certain that he was grinning beneath the steel faceplate. Her blood ran cold as she realized what she had done, how badly her ruse had backfired. Stahl lifted himself off of her and returned to Susie’s side, kneeling and scooping the helpless blonde back into his chest. “Who’d have thought the coward would be the useful one, eh?”

“What do you want to know...?” Freesia was beaten, and she knew it. Anything less than total cooperation would get Susie hurt, and she couldn’t bear that on her conscience. Yet she had lied; she didn’t have any secrets to share with him. The only option left was to lie again, and hope that she didn’t get both of them killed.

~ ~ ~

She answered every question with a falsehood made to match.

The interrogation was arduous for Freesia, but she imagined that it must have been far worse an ordeal for her blonde-haired comrade. Stahl’s every question was punctuated by another assault on Susie’s bound and helpless body; a squeeze of her breast, a twist of her nipple, a finger probing against the crotch of her pink panties. Her bra had been discarded long ago, torn away from her body and thrown into some dark corner of the storeroom, leaving bare her modest bosom and the marks Stahl had inflicted on it. Susie had stopped crying eventually, but the dead-eyed silence it had been replaced with was of little comfort to her squadmate.

“...That’ll do for now.” Stahl’s words heralded the greatest relief that Freesia had ever felt in her life. The Imperial captain was climbing to his feet, dusting himself off and leaving the almost naked Susie on the floor with no means to cover herself. “I’ve still got your friends to chat to, after all. Think the shrimp’ll talk first, or the Darcsen?”

Freesia said nothing, simply glaring at her evil captor. Susie was beyond words, the prolonged abuse and molestation seemingly leaving her a shell of herself. Neither was in any mood to play more of Stahl’s games, for there could only be one winner, and it would always be the same person.

“Hmph. You’re no fun.” Annoyed, the shocktrooper sank a grasping hand into Freesia’s black tresses and hauled her up until she was kneeling on the floor before him, her groans of pain serving to satisfy his foul mood. “Stay,” he warned, his voice so devoid of warmth that she dared not defy him, and stooped to do the same thing to Susie. When both women were resting on their knees face to face, their scalps burning from the rough treatment, he moved into the shadows and began to rummage through the tools and objects lining the storeroom’s shelves.

Illuminated by shimmering blue, Susie’s tear-streaked face was an agony to behold. The poor girl had never deserved this. “Susie, listen to me,” Freesia whispered, her intense brown eyes fixing on Susie’s pale. How she wished her arms were unbound so she could hug her shell-shocked friend. “It’s gonna be okay. We just have to hold out until we get transferred to the prison. I know they’ll treat us better than this.” It was yet another lie, but it was the only thing that she could do to lift Susie’s waning spirits.

Susie offered no reply, but Freesia could see the doubt in the girl’s hollow eyes.

Stahl returned a few moments later, a roll of silver duct tape in his hands, killing any chance of being able to comfort her further. Depositing the roll on the floor for a moment, he placed a hand on Susie’s back and a hand on Freesia’s and pushed, guiding the two kneeling women closer together. Knowing that resistance was futile, Freesia simply let her captor move her around as he wished.

Both women inhaled sharply as their breasts were made to touch, Freesia’s ample, half-clothed mounds pressing firmly against Susie’s shamefully bared bosom. Susie’s cheeks flared scarlet at the intimate contact and she shut her eyes tight, biting down on her lip to distract herself from the sudden, painful pressure. Stahl did not stop there, his insistent hands forcing the girls’ bodies even closer together until their warm flesh touched from chest to thigh...

Then came the tape. Stahl moved quickly, affixing the end of the silvery ribbon to Freesia’s straining shoulder and wrapping the tape in a circuit around the bodies of the two women, the sticky cocoon ensuring that they would remain locked together in their humiliating predicament. Down he went, winding layers of tape across more and more of their exposed skin, binding them together from their chests all the way down to their hips. Then, still unsatisfied, he pushed the kneeling duo to the floor and continued the binding process on their shapely legs, pinning the women to each other at thigh, knee, shin, foot...

By the time he was done, the clinging silver web had bound the Gallians together so tightly that neither woman could move their bodies even the slightest bit. They were trapped in this unwilling embrace, their arms still bound behind their backs, their bodies grinding against each other, their breasts mashed painfully together, completely immobilised by their bindings new and old. Freesia had at least been able to bend her legs a little before, but now they were secured to Susie’s so firmly that she could no longer even accomplish this most minor of feats. The blonde girl was in the same lamentable situation; the body of each woman served to limit the other’s movement even more strictly in addition to the embarrassment it enforced upon them both. 

The warmth of Susie’s pale skin pressing against her own was a welcome contrast to the chilly air drifting against the rest of Freesia’s half-nude body. The tape circling their bodies was so tight that she had no hope of squirming into a more comfortable position; she was stuck like this, face-to-face with Susie, her breasts compressed against those of her pretty friend. The pressure was unpleasant, but she was sure that the arrangement was even less comfortable for the more poorly endowed blonde. The other girl was biting her lip, her eyes half-lidded, a soft moan escaping her as she struggled to adjust to the distressing sensations evoked by her forcibly flattened mounds. Her cheeks were still flushed pink, her breathing shallower than before... was she becoming _aroused_?

She was not the only one, though Freesia was loath to admit it. The beautiful dancer had never felt any desire for another woman and she didn’t now, but the close contact with her friend’s warm, naked flesh was having an undeniable effect on her own body regardless of her feelings on the matter. With their hips taped together, their crotches were touching, leaving Freesia keenly aware of the heat building between her legs and hopeful that Susie would not sense it. Their situation was bad enough without that potential awkwardness.

~ ~ ~

All the while Stahl had been closely watching the two women as they accustomed themselves to the silver cocoon they now shared. The sight of their barely-clad bodies pressed together by the shining tape, squirming and twisting against each other in vain attempts to find comfortable positions, made the Imperial’s heart race and his trousers seem several sizes too small. More than anything he enjoyed the distress reflected upon their lovely faces, the little groans and gasps they uttered as they struggled against the stubbornly clinging tape that held them still, their complete and utter powerlessness. Soon he would tear the last flimsy scraps of clothing from their bodies and make the both of them his...

But there was still the matter of the other two Gallian prisoners; the leader and her pet Darcsen. Extracting vital intelligence from the silver-haired girl who had somehow been placed in command of the four-woman unit had to come first. Business before pleasure, after all.

He retrieved the half-spent roll of duct tape from the floor, turning it about in his hands. _Well, maybe a little more pleasure._

~ ~ ~

Distracted by a mixture of helpless discomfort and miserable embarrassment, her awareness consumed by the warmth and scent and fettered movements of the other woman taped to her body, Susie had almost managed to forget about the presence of their lecherous captor. The sensations rising from her half-crushed breasts and heat-teased nethers were more than enough to occupy her reeling mind, unwanted though they were, and Freesia’s constant squirming was doing very little to calm the blonde’s arousal.

...Arousal? Was that what this was? The idea only increased the humiliation Susie felt. She had no attraction to girls and she was certain that man-chasing Freesia felt the same, but the feelings flooding through her body from the continued pressure and contact were impossible to ignore, and she had to concede that they provided a tiny spark of comfort in a dire situation. Still recovering from Stahl’s mortifying molestation of her, Susie would take any relief she could get, and damn her shame.

The sound of tearing fabric snapped the scout out of her daze. Stahl was standing over the taped-up women once again, tearing a thick white cloth in two with his bare hands, then crumpling each half into a sizeable ball. Susie had immediately known what he intended and her suspicions were swiftly confirmed; seizing her chin in one hand, Stahl forced one of the wadded cloths inside her mouth with the other, clamping his palm over her lips to prevent her from spitting it out while he fumbled again for the reel of duct tape. 

The musty-tasting cotton filled up every inch of Susie’s mouth, sealing away her voice and packing her tongue down into her jaw. Her saliva was already seeping into the absorbent stuffing, the damp cloth slowly growing heavier as her mouth began to dry out. It was a struggle not to retch, with loose threads threatening to tickle the back of her throat and trigger her gag reflex, but the fear of choking on her own vomit proved strong enough to keep her calm... just in time for a length of silver tape to be pressed over her lips.

The glue adhered to her reddened cheeks without delay, taking firm hold of her lips and trapping the wadded cloth inside her mouth. She had expected Stahl to stop there, but instead the shocktrooper began to wind the tape around Susie’s head, catching in her loose blonde tresses and plastering them to the back of her neck. Nor did he stop when he had completed the circuit; a second layer followed, then a third, the rapidly thickening gag pressing her cheeks inward as it grew ever tighter. The cloth stuffing was already packed tightly enough; much more of this and the horrid thing would be forced down her throat...

He stopped at three layers, to Susie’s relief, but the respite was painfully short-lived. Without cutting the tape Stahl began to add a fourth layer to her face, but this time it was not destined for her lips... but for her tear-filled eyes.

Primal instinct kicked in. Susie twisted her head to the side, filled with terror at the prospect of losing her sight, but Stahl simply jerked her head back to face him and pasted the tape over her eyes. Although they had closed with an instant to spare, saving her vulnerable eyes from the powerful adhesive, the sickening feeling of the glue sticking fast to her eyelids and the bridge of her nose was too much for the blonde girl to deal with. She panicked, fear surging through her veins, thrashing against her bonds both tape and flesh with a ferocity one might expect from a wild animal. She begged for mercy, for the blindfold to be _taken off right now_ , but her pleas were warped and muffled by the wadded cotton plugging her mouth and her captor was unmoved by the unintelligible moans that escaped. Three layers, just like her gag; only then did Stahl stop and heed her cries.

It was too late, of course, but he hardly cared.

Susie’s struggles died down as the loose tape was cut and pressed into place, her torturous blindfold completed. Her blindness, and fear of what would happen when the tape was eventually removed, had broken her. 

“You’re a monster.” She could hear Freesia’s voice, somehow still maintaining a measure of defiance. She wished she could view her comrade’s face, but all she could see was the dark.

Stahl’s laughter had never been so sinister. ”If she’s going to cry over a little tape then she shouldn’t have come to a war zone. Let’s see how _you_ cope.”

Freesia started to retort, but the words were quickly reduced to a stifled whine as the second cloth was stuffed into her mouth, silencing her. The only sounds that followed were the tearing rasp of duct tape liberally dispensed from the reel, and soon afterward a pair of departing bootsteps and a closing door...

_At least this time I have company._


	7. Interrogation

The bathroom had gone horribly quiet.

Edy had fallen silent, finally tired of screaming her fury into the socks stuffed inside her mouth. It wasn’t getting her anywhere; even had she not been gagged like this, she was sure that nothing she could have said would have convinced the lancer guarding her to so much as loosen the ropes binding her. He had clearly been enjoying her muffled howls of frustration as she struggled against the painfully tight bindings, trying and failing to work her arms out of their strict folded position behind her back. There was nothing to be gained by shouting herself hoarse.

A few feet across the chilly linoleum floor lay her comrade Lynn, still half-cocooned in silver tape and gagged in the same manner as Edy. Unlike her unit leader, Lynn hadn’t vented her emotions since being taken into this bathroom, preferring to keep her strength in reserve should an opportunity arise. The Darcsen shocktrooper was even more helpless than her fiery little friend, her hands bound behind her and curled into fists, wrapped in layers of tape to keep them immobilized. Her legs barely deserved mentioning, still taped together from thigh to toe. What could she possibly achieve by resisting? It was better to wait, and to hope, for a chance to escape. 

The sound of bootsteps on the other side of the door broke the silence. The two captives and one guard looked up to see Stahl enter the bathroom, carrying glossy silver cords in one hand and a small black pistol in the other. Neither Edy nor Lynn was entirely certain which of the items frightened them more.

“Sir.” Gustav stood to attention. “Prisoners secured, sir.”

“So I see.” There was an approving note to Stahl’s voice as he peered closely at both women, observing the gags that his subordinate had given them. “Very nice, but I’m afraid that I must ask you to remove the gag on the silver-haired one. She and I have some business to discuss.”

Gustav winced; he had been enjoying the quiet. Still, he obediently crouched over the rope-bound Edy and yanked the scarf out of her mouth, then plucked out the soaked pair of socks within and dropped them onto the floor. “If you scream in my ear,” he warned as the little vixen took a gasping breath, “those are going right back in. Understand?”

Edy’s dark eyes shone with rage, but she managed to keep her temper under control. She didn’t want some stranger’s socks anywhere near her mouth again. “Yes,” she said stiffly, a reasonable imitation of cowed compliance. “I understand.”

“Good. Now, I am going to need you in a moment, but first I need to consult the Darcsen.” Stahl’s eyes were running over Lynn’s tape-swathed body, lingering less than she expected on her half-exposed breasts. “I’m afraid I’ll have to get all of this tape off you, dark-hair, but don’t even think about trying anything. You do, and Gustav snaps Edy’s neck.” One nod from the Imperial captain and Gustav was hauling Edy into a sitting position, her bound arms against his chest and his arm wrapped around her neck just tightly enough to threaten. It would be all too easy for him to give one little twist...

“Mmhhh.” Lynn nodded meekly, knowing how limited her options were. The two men of the Empire had full control of the situation.

Satisfied with that, Stahl sought out the end of the tape binding the Darcsen woman’s pale legs. He located it glued to the underside of Lynn’s thigh and tore it away from her skin, causing her to yelp in pain, then began to peel away the silver cocoon in earnest, unwinding it layer by layer. The sensation of the tough adhesive being ripped from her legs made Lynn moan in increasing discomfort, biting down on the socks that muffled her as the slow process continued. It was anything but pleasant, but at least she was being freed...

But why? Why was he removing her bindings now? As Stahl worked at unwrapping her feet from the tape, a heart-stopping thought entered her mind. Was it because he wanted to be able to part her legs? At the least, having her thighs taped together had shielded her most intimate areas from contact. The men who had captured her had decided not to rape her, their loathing of Darcsens overriding their lusts, but did Stahl think the same way? She could only hope that he shared their disgust at her ancestry.

The last strips of silver tape were torn from her feet, freeing her legs at last, though leaving them coated in the sticky remnants of the glue. Rather than reaching for her panties, as she had half-expected him to do, Stahl simply flipped Lynn onto her stomach and began attacking the tape that bound her hands into fists. For a brief moment she dared to dream that freedom was at hand, that he planned to let her go after all, but the sight of the silver cords laid out on the floor soon killed that optimistic notion. She sighed into her sodden gag and waited for him to release her fingers from their tight little prison.

One final tug from Stahl and her hands were free as well. The cold air greeted her glue-laden hands, almost an alien sensation after so long in their confinement, and she flexed her fingers for the first time in hours. It felt good to regain control of her body, although her wrists were still pinned behind her back by the rope her previous custodians had used on her. She had almost forgotten that it existed beneath all that tape.

She had hoped that Stahl might also remove the rope or her embarrassing gag, but it seemed that the Imperial had no interest in undoing any more of her restraints. Instead, he selected one of the silver ropes he had brought in with him and used it to lash Lynn’s ankles together once again, the material proving nowhere near as slippery as its glossy appearance suggested. “I had to take these cords from the curtains,” he told her casually as he tied a strict knot in the thrice-looped cord, securely tying her feet to one another. “You lovely Gallian girls are running me out of restraints! If any more of your friends show up, I might have to actually start using the handcuffs...”

“You mean you could have been using handcuffs on us this whole time!?” Edy exploded, filled anew with rage, heedless of Gustav’s arm still around her neck. Her arms tensed in their bonds, her hands clenching. “Then why did you do _this_ to me!? Why did you have to tie Lynn up like that!? Why did you do those things to Susie and Freesia!? Answer me!”

“Isn’t it obvious? Because I _wanted to_!” Stahl did not look up from his work despite his incredulity at her questioning, swiftly fastening Lynn’s lower thighs together in the same manner as he had her ankles. “It’s been a long time since I had some girl prisoners to play with! I’m thinking when we’re done with the interrogation, I might just report three Gallian captives to the superiors instead of four. I might keep you, silver... or maybe the weepy blonde one instead. She’s fun to mess around with.”

That sent a new chill of fear down Lynn’s spine, but with the gag in her mouth she was unable to question it. Fortunately, Edy was more than willing to press him despite her own situation. “What did you do to Susie!?”

“Nothing much.“ Stahl cinched the curtain cord between Lynn’s legs, making her squirm as it dug into her still-sticky flesh. “She’s just getting more intimately acquainted with that other one... Freesia, did you say? They were getting along very well when I left them, not that they could say so.” A cruel thought occurred to him, and he fished in his uniform pocket for the trophy he had taken. A moment later, he tossed the pink lace bra onto the floor where both women could see it. “She lost this though, careless girl. Really should look after such nice underwear. I’ve got her panties here somewhere too, hold on...”

This last had been a bluff, but it had its intended effect. Both Gallian girls screamed their displeasure, although only Edy’s ungagged fury was coherent enough to be understood. “You _son of a bitch_! I swear I’ll kill you! Don’t you _dare_ hurt them!” Every furious sentence was punctuated by a mighty heave against the ropes binding her body, but the only thing she achieved was allowing her own bra straps to slide down her shoulders. The frilly blue thing was in danger of coming off, a realization that finally calmed Edy down a little. No way was she letting him see her without it!

“That’s enough out of you for now. Gag her with this, Gustav, I’ll need the socks and scarf in a minute.” Stahl scooped up Susie’s fallen bra from the floor and tossed it to his underling, who caught the flimsy pink thing with his free hand and crammed it straight into Edy’s mouth, muffling her screams of outrage. His sweaty palm remained in place over her lips, holding the undergarment inside and further dulling the sounds the feisty girl could make.

The dismal conversation died, much to Lynn’s gratitude, but the Darcsen girl was hardly in a position to enjoy it. The third curtain cord was being tied around her elbows, pushing them together behind her back, and the experience was far from comfortable. Shards of pain blazed in her shoulder and arms as the knots were tightened, bringing her right elbow all too close to touching the left. Her stifled protests went ignored. The taped hands were almost preferable to this, she thought with increasing bitterness.

Only one curtain cord remained, but any relief Lynn felt was quickly stamped out. Stahl fastened one end of the cord to the bindings on Lynn’s wrists, smooth silver circling rough brown, then forced her legs to bend backward and looped the other end through the rope tying her ankles together. Whining at the sensation of her heels poking into her scantily-clad rear, she lay still and let him finish the hogtie by connecting the last cord to the ropes between her elbows and tying it off. She was left completely immobilized once again, but now it was even more uncomfortable than it had been before.

The question remained foremost in her mind; why had the Imperial done this in the first place? The duct tape wrapping by the other soldiers had been enough to keep her helplessly paralyzed. Why had he gone to the trouble of freeing her, then tying her up all over again? Was it just for his sick amusement?

Leaving Lynn alone for one glorious instant, Stahl rose and approached Gustav, the lancer still holding Edy captive in his muscular grip. The Gallian girl tried to speak, her intended words clearly not intended to be compliments, but the combination of Gustav’s hand and Susie’s bra had effectively smothered her piercing voice. Chuckling within his imposing trooper’s helmet, Stahl stooped to pick up the one scarf and two socks that had served as Edy’s previous gag, then returned to Lynn’s side and dropped to the floor beside her. “Now for the finishing touches.”

Parting the two rolled-up socks, Stahl set one of them aside and descended upon Lynn’s face with the other. It was still drenched in Edy’s saliva, to the Darcsen’s disgust, but she was powerless to stop her captor as he pressed the sodden heel against her already gagged lips, then stretched the ends of the sock behind her head and tied it in place with a knot. Another layer for her gag, as pointless as it seemed; her cries had already been muffled beyond recognition.

The other sock was next, just as wet as the first. Stahl positioned this too over Lynn’s face, but this time it was aimed to cover not her mouth but her nose. Lynn let out a a groan of alarmed protest behind her gag, suddenly very frightened. How was she supposed to breathe!?

“You’ll manage,” Stahl murmured, answering her unintelligible question. He yanked the ends of the sock back, drawing it taut across her face, then added a third tight knot to the growing collection behind the Darcsen woman’s head. Lynn’s panic surged... then quickly subsided as she realized that the covering of her nose had not _completely_ cut off her air supply. She could still breathe.

It was now _much_ more difficult, though. The sock forced her nose back toward her face, the pressure squashing her nostrils to slits, severely limiting her oxygen supply. It didn’t help that the soggy footwear was very hard to draw air through, being two layers thick and rather heavy thanks to its absorption of Edy’s spit. It was uncomfortable, but manageable, _if_ she could concentrate all of her attention on simply inhaling and exhaling, taking it one breath at a time, sucking in as much air as she could through her narrowed nostrils...

Stahl, however, was not yet finished. He reached for the final part of Edy’s previous gag, the silken scarf; while it wasn’t as wet as the socks were, not having been stuffed all the way inside Edy’s mouth, sections of it were still somewhat damp with the silver-haired girl’s saliva. It took only a few moments for his practiced hands to wrap the scarf around Lynn’s eyes, blindfolding her, concealing the very last part of her face from view. This time her moan was even more subdued; she could no longer spare the air to make a louder noise.

“All right, we’re done.” Pleased with himself, Stahl lifted Lynn into his arms. Hogtied, gagged, blinded and struggling for air, she was in no position to resist.

~ ~ ~

Edy had watched as her Darcsen friend was placed under more and more needlessly spiteful restrictions, powerless to intervene. Gustav had loosened his grip around her neck a little, but only a little. His hand hadn’t left her mouth, either, ensuring that Susie’s faintly sweaty bra remained lodged inside to silence her.

She could not imagine that the blonde girl had surrendered it willingly, but Edy had her own problems to deal with before she could worry about anyone else’s. 

Lynn was in Stahl’s arms now, cruelly bound, her face completely covered in cloth. Had it not been for her distinctive blue-black hair, she might have been completely unrecognizable even to her squadmate and leader. The sound of her labored breaths filled the room as she struggled for air through the damp sock tied across her nose. There had been no need to restrict poor Lynn’s breathing like this, nor to blindfold her; Stahl was just sadistic.

To her surprise, Stahl held the Darcsen woman in his grasp for only a moment, then moved to put her down... in the wide, ceramic bathtub at the far side of the room.

The shock of the frigid porcelain against her bare skin drew an involuntary squeal from Lynn, muffled by her thick cotton gag, but it was quickly cut short as she remembered the need to conserve precious oxygen. She offered no further resistance as Stahl turned her so that she lay on her side in the tub, staring at a wall of pure white ceramic. Bound as she was, with both her hands and her feet tied fast behind her back, there was little point in attempting to move around. She was not going to be able to climb out of the bathtub on her own; she couldn’t even find the traction to roll over.

It was only when Stahl reached for the plug and forced it into the drain that Edy realized what was about to happen. She wailed through her gag, the lace of Susie’s bra rasping against her swaddled tongue, her demands muffled but still clear enough to comprehend.

“I _might_ leave her alone... if you cooperate,” Stahl answered, pressing down on the bath plug to ensure that it stayed snug in its hole. “I’ve got some questions for you to answer. Gustav, let her talk.”

The lancer complied, removing his hand from Edy’s lips and drawing the now-damp bra out of her mouth. She spluttered and spat, trying to rid her mouth of the taste of Susie’s sweat, taking deep breaths to steady herself. The threat to Lynn’s safety was obvious, as was what she would need to do to protect the Darcsen trooper. As commander of the four woman unit, she had been given more military intelligence than Lynn, Freesia and Susie. She would gladly give up the information if it would save Lynn...

Stahl turned on the cold water tap.


	8. Torment

The bathwater was bitterly cold as it flowed against Lynn’s naked flesh, two inches deep and rising.

So far the Darcsen trooper had managed to keep her head well above the surface of the water, though that would surely prove more difficult as the level continued to increase. Laid on her side in the ceramic tub, her hands and feet bound tightly together behind her back, there was very little that Lynn could do to escape the climbing water but hold her head as high up as possible. Her task was made more stressful by the scarf tied over her eyes, preventing her from seeing a thing, but worse was the saliva-damp sock that Stahl had tied over her nose to limit her ability to breathe. It was drying out after several minutes outside of Edy’s mouth, but it would be wet again soon enough.

“Next question.” Stahl’s voice rose above the running water, aimed at the ungagged Edy. “How many tanks are based in the eastern Boulevard base? How many APCs?”

“Three tanks.” Though Lynn could not see her fiery little superior, it was clear from her voice that she was answering _very_ grudgingly. “Only one APC.”

“Noted.” Stahl’s hand dipped into the bathwater, playfully swishing it about. A dripping finger traced Lynn’s nose, adding a little dampness to the sock tied over it. “Is your commander’s tank one of those? Are any of your other superiors based there?”

Despite the fear-born adrenaline fueling her body, Lynn was beginning to tire of the deep, gasping breaths she was forced to take just to avoid suffocation. She tuned out the interrogation as best she could, focusing all of her strength on resisting the urge to surrender. The water depth was nearing three inches now, and more of her body had been submerged. 

Growing desperate, she began to rub her shoulder against the surface of the tub, hoping to find the plug. Unfortunately, or rather by Stahl’s design, her head had been placed at the opposite end of the bath to the drain and the taps, a measure to prevent just such interference. With her legs folded behind her and her ankles bound to her wrists there was no chance of dislodging the plug from its place with her lower body, either. She groaned in frustration, but the sound was obscured by the socks wadded inside her mouth and the constant splash of more water entering her slippery prison.

She was adjusting to the cold, at least... but how many more questions did Stahl intend to ask before he turned off the tap?

The Imperial was still quizzing Edy about the Gallian troop placements, and she was still providing him with clipped, hateful answers. The barrage of demands showed no signs of slowing down anytime soon, but the water level was creeping ever higher, claiming more and more of Lynn’s body. It was lapping at the curve of her breast before long, soaking into her bra and dancing against the tips of her dangling blue-black hair. Time was running out.

Panic was starting to return, visions of water surging up her nose and into her lungs filling her with mortal fear. She wanted to cry out, beg for reprieve, but she didn’t dare halt the routine of heaving, gulping breaths that allowed her to draw precious air through the sock bound across her nose. There was nothing that she could do to escape her dire situation; anything she tried would simply place her that much closer to death. The only option available to the quiet Darcsen woman was to wait and to hope, telling herself she didn’t already feel the cool water caressing her cheek and the crotch of her panties...

~ ~ ~

“Oh, dear. It looks like the dark-hair is getting a bit upset in there!”

Stahl’s callous mockery only provided more tinder for the flames of Edy’s towering anger. She couldn’t see into the bathtub from her place across the room, still held captive in the grip of the lancer Gustav, but she knew that the running water had to be close to endangering Lynn by now. “I’m answering your questions, you bastard! Let her out of there and I’ll do anything you want!”

“Anything?” The helmet concealed Stahl’s suddenly arched eyebrow. “Is that a fact? Well, little miss leader, I’ll bet if you squirmed around a little bit more your bra would slide all the way off! That’d be worth a few seconds with the tap turned off for your pet Darcsen, though I’m sure she could use the wash. Her kind are always so dirty.”

“My... my bra?” Edy instinctively looked down at her chest, where the frilly undergarment was in danger of slipping off her modest chest. She had always been self-conscious about her body, hating to show it off in public, but she was almost becoming used to the state of near-nudity the Empire’s finest had seen fit to keep her in. The notion of going further, though... that frightened her almost as much as it disgusted her.

“Yes, that’s right... although, I did already sample the goods while I was tying you up.” No helmet could disguise the glee in Stahl’s voice. “It was tough to put your bra back on with your nipples standing up-”

“ _You filthy pervert!_ ” Blood rushed to Edy’s face at the mortifying revelation, painting her cheeks scarlet. He had _fondled her_ while she was _unconscious_!? Her fury smothered her senses, demanding that she launch herself at Stahl and beat him to a bloody pulp for this transgression. Oh, she tried, even with her arms still securely tied together behind her back, but Gustav merely tightened his hold on the silver-haired girl, holding her back from her quarry. Even with every muscle in her body burning for revenge, she was still completely outmatched.

His lascivious stare told her that her bra had slipped down even further, but she couldn’t bear to look down at her chest this time. The frilly blue cups still covered her nipples, she would have noticed had she dared, but now revealed every inch of skin above them. The only things holding it on at all were her sharply bent elbows, preventing the straps from descending any further down her arms; for once her bondage had benefited her rather than her captors.

Taking note of the glimmering tears in the corners of Edy’s eyes, Stahl decided to press the issue. Breaking the feisty ones had always been something he had taken great pleasure in, and this one had more spark than most. “Gustav, take the bra off her. The panties, too. I want her n-”

A strangled scream from the bathtub cut off the end of his order, loud enough to overcome the constant crash of water falling from the tap. Abruptly remembering the woman he was attempting to drown, Stahl peered down into the bathtub to check on the situation. “Hold off for now, Gustav,” he commanded, raising a palm to his subordinate. “Things are getting interesting over here!”

~ ~ ~

The depth of the bathwater had passed nine and a half inches.

Even with Lynn straining her aching neck to keep her head above the surface, the water level was already tickling the side of the Darcsen woman’s face. Most of her body had been entirely submerged now, the mounting cold conspiring to sap away her strength, leaving only her shoulder and her head temporarily above water. There was no more room to move. If the tap remained on, she was going to drown in a matter of minutes.

Stahl waited, ignoring her pleading moans and Edy’s shrieked demands and insults, until the edge of the water had risen to cover one nostril and half of Lynn’s mouth. Only then did he reach for the cold water handle and wrench it counterclockwise. The tap shut off, now bleeding only a trail of shallow drips into the bathtub.

He did not, however, reach for the plug.

“Your neck must be getting sore by now, dark-hair,” he observed, sadistic malice oozing through his narrow visor. “Probably getting very hard to breathe, too. How long can you keep it up? Think you can last another ten minutes?”

“Nrrrghhhh...” The sound that escaped Lynn’s sock-stuffed mouth was pitiful and defeated. Everything he had said was true. The only thing keeping her neck tilted so sharply was the knowledge that it was the only thing saving her head from complete submersion, and it _was_ becoming nearly impossible to inhale enough air to keep herself going. Her throat was stretched by her straining neck, and the sock covering her nostrils was by now soaking wet, clinging to her nose and blocking out almost all oxygen. Even testing her lungs to the limit she was no longer taking in enough to keep herself conscious. She could feel the lightheadedness setting in, nagging at her terrified mind, slowly overcoming her...

“Stop it! Stop it, _stop it!_ ” Edy thrashed against her ropes and the lancer who held her still, letting the tears fall. She didn’t care about them seeing her stupid breasts anymore, only that her friend was about to die. “Let her out! Let her out of th- mrrrrrghh!” 

The silver-haired vixen was abruptly silenced; Gustav had stuffed Susie’s bra back into her mouth, clapping a hand over her lips to stop her spitting it out. 

Stahl completely ignored both of them, his attention now entirely fixated on the Darcsen struggling for air before him. To him, watching Lynn exerting all of her energy just to keep her head raised above the water’s surface was a delicious entertainment, the sound of her strangled breaths the perfect accompaniment. They were becoming shallower, her body growing tired and weak for lack of oxygen. She would give in soon, any minute now...

~ ~ ~

“Fire.”

A dozen blue-gloved fingers clenched around a dozen triggers, propelling a dozen heavy rockets into the air. 

Caught completely by surprise, the Imperials posted on guard duty outside of the modest headquarters had no time to react before they were engulfed in a cloud of fire and shrapnel. Two light tanks, resting on the pavement outside the building, were swiftly ripped apart by anti-tank shells that punched through metal as readily as concrete, reduced to burning wrecks in the space of seconds. The base itself, nothing more than a civilian house occupied by the invading army, suffered several successive blows that dented its sturdy stone facade and shattered its frontal windows.

The Gallians had come. 

~ ~ ~

The entire building shook with the force of the jarring impacts, stirring a dozen shouts of alarm from the floor beneath as the remaining Imperials realized that they were under attack. The sounds of gunfire swiftly followed the initial blasts, erupting from both sides, filling the air with the staggered cracks of rifles and the rapid roar of submachine guns. The cries of the injured and dying were not far behind.

They were under heavy attack.

Stahl was the first to climb to his feet, tearing his gaze away from the spectacle of the drowning Darcsen in front of him. “Gustav, get your lance and man the front bedroom window,” he ordered, suddenly all business. The cruel torturer was gone, replaced by the commanding officer. “Target tanks and APCs first, then ground troops. I’ll get you some support as soon as I can.”

Gustav saluted and moved, dashing through the bathroom door with impressive speed and agility for such a large man, leaving his prisoner on the floor in her ropes. Edy’s heart soared as her tormentor left her sight, expecting Stahl to follow on his heels. Her countrymen were here! They were going to be saved! Their ordeal was almost over!

Sadly, it was not to be so simple. Stahl had something else in mind.

He dropped to his knees beside Edy, checking each of her bindings in turn. Her arms were still tied tightly behind her back with rope, he found, and her legs were still bound together at ankle and knee, just as they had been hours ago when he had first trussed her up. Just a few additions were needed; the quick application of one of her pigtail ribbons between her teeth solved the problem of her gag, painfully drawing back the corners of her lips and ensuring that she could not spit out the bra still stuffed inside her mouth. The second ribbon was swiftly ripped from her silver hair as well, tied tightly over her eyes and knotted behind her head to blind her. 

The chances of the fiery little trooper escaping the restraints on her own were minimal, he concluded. He could safely leave her here.

“I’m going to go and kill some Gallians now,” he informed her almost cheerfully, taking up his pistol and returning it to its holster. “I’ll be back for you when I’m done. In the meantime, why don’t you see if you’re up for a challenge? Do you think you can save your friend from a watery end, all tied up like that? Don’t worry if you can’t. She’s only a Darcsen, after all.”

On his way out of the bathroom, he turned the tap back on.


	9. Desperation

The violent confrontation outside continued unabated, but all Edy could hear was the dirge of running water.

 _That bastard! That callous, heartless bastard!_ It was rage more than fear that was fueling the silver-haired girl as she painstakingly inched across the floor toward the steadily filling bathtub. She had known that Stahl was evil to his core, but this was an unbelievable cruelty. Lynn was about to die, drowned right in front of her, and where was the only person who could save the pretty Darcsen from her fate? Down on the frigid linoleum, forced to squirm along like a worm and just as blind and voiceless as one.

Even blindfolded with her own ribbon, Edy had little trouble knowing where it was she needed to go. The sounds of water splashing into water guided her like a beacon, drawing her closer to her friend’s porcelain prison. Regardless, the presence of the ribbon tied tightly over her eyes was a curse; for all she knew, Lynn could already be dead. The water was too loud for her gasping breaths to be audible, if she were still struggling to hold onto life. If only Edy could _see_ , she would have her answer. Whether she liked it or not.

Not knowing was killing her, but there was only one thing she could do for her friend now. She had to keep squirming.

~ ~ ~ 

Alone in the depths of the dark, freezing basement, Freesia and Susie listened helplessly to the sounds of the battle raging on the surface.

There was nothing else that they _could_ do. The two women were still bound face to face in a cocoon of duct tape, their arms pinned behind them and their legs tied together, the tight silver sheath that they shared leaving them barely any room to do so much as squirm. Stahl’s work was both cruel and effective, ensuring that neither of them could help the other in escape.

Freesia was finally beginning to get used to the forced closeness with Susie, the feeling of the blonde girl’s breasts and stomach and hips pressed hard against hers, the constant rhythm of her shaky breathing. They could not see or speak to each other - wadded cloths and a great deal more tape had seen to that – but her presence was a comfort to the raven-haired dancer. At least she wasn’t alone in this hellhole.

Another round of explosive shells struck the building above, rattling the foundations and shaking loose a spray of tiny stone shards to shower the basement floor. She heard Susie cry out in fear, her yelp of panic barely audible behind the thick cloth stuffed inside her mouth and the three layers of tape wrapped over her lips, and wished that she could say something to calm her frightened comrade down. That was not possible, to her frustration; she was just as strictly gagged as Susie.

Perhaps it was for the best. A horrible thought occurred to Freesia, one that she had no wish to share with Susie, and one that gnawed at her all the more every time the house trembled under another destructive barrage. 

_Are the Gallians trying to destroy this place? Do they even know we’re in here?_

~ ~ ~

Corpses lined the once-quiet street, clad in blues and greys and reds, but their living brethren had not yet killed enough.

The Imperial garrison had been caught by surprise at first, but they had quickly found their feet, returning fire with the discipline and marksmanship that the armies of the Emperor were known for. Even the loss of their two tanks had not fazed them for long. They had lost many in the fray, claimed by rockets and grenades and a dozen types of bullet, but they in turn had sent many Gallians to meet their maker. The paving stones were stained with blood, both native and invader.

The Imperials fought bravely, but the element of surprise had already played its part in the confrontation and the defenders found themselves unable to completely compensate. The Gallians had their own tanks on the field, and their positioning did not grant easy access to the vulnerable ragnite engines on the rear of their chassis, leaving the Empire’s anti-tank lancers to pound on the thick frontal armor. Every rocket they released was another dent in one of the steel behemoths, but every time they fired another lancer was picked off, having given his position away with the flash of his colossal weapon. The Imperials were slowly being worn down, and their options were narrowing.

Stahl had taken position on the battered upper floor of the building, armed only with his faithful pistol. His shocktrooper’s submachine gun was in the makeshift armory downstairs, and there was no time to go and find it, not that there would be any point. It was a close-range weapon, he knew, and either way his role now lay in leadership, in directing his troops over the radio link built into his helmet. From here he could see most of the battlefield and the movements of both sides, allowing him to co-ordinate his men and convey enemy positions to them.

He knew where they were, he knew what they were doing... and he knew when he was beaten. The Gallians had the upper hand, and his troops were ill-equipped to deal with the relentless attack. Their tanks were gone, and they had little hope of destroying those of the enemy. There was only one option.

“Begin the retreat.” His furious voice reached every Imperial ear still capable of hearing, the crackle of the radio doing nothing to block out his seething rage. “Withdraw to sector 6. Keep it orderly, we are not a rabble.”

Gustav lowered his massive weapon and glanced at his commanding officer, the hulk of a lancer clearly annoyed by the order. “We can still win this, sir. Their tanks can’t take much more of-”

He never saw the sniper’s bullet coming.

~ ~ ~

Twelve inches of water filled the bathtub, and there was no more air.

Lynn’s lungs were exhausted, the constant struggle for air wearing her out so entirely that not even adrenaline could keep them going any longer. Her body was starved for oxygen, the now drenched sock tied across her face clinging to her nose like glue and blocking out all but the merest scraps of air. She had been almost entirely submerged by the water now, straining her neck further than she had thought possible to keep her head above the constantly rising liquid, and she was still on the verge of drowning.

She was... tired.

_In the meantime, why don’t you see if you’re up for a challenge? Do you think you can save your friend from a watery end, all tied up like that?_

She knew that Edy had been left in the bathroom with her, the only chance of rescue she had, but Lynn had lost hope that her fiery little friend would be able to save her. She had seen just how tightly Stahl had trussed Edy up, before this accursed scarf had been fastened over her eyes to shut out the light, and she knew that there was no way that her comrade would be able to make it all the way across the floor, turn off the tap _and_ let the water out of the tub in time. She was doomed.

_Don’t worry if you can’t. She’s only a Darcsen, after all._

Stahl’s words echoed in Lynn’s head even as her thoughts grew sluggish, her once-clever mind slowing to a crawl. Only a Darcsen. She had heard those words, over and over, for twenty long years, and it had never become any easier. She was tired of being less than human to so many people, tired of being an outcast, tired of being blamed for something that had happened centuries before her birth.

She was... tired. So tired.

_Karl, my love, I’m sorry._

The last of her strength failed her. Her head dropped beneath the surface, the water closing over her covered face like the lid of a coffin.

~ ~ ~

Her journey had seemed to take an eon, wriggling inch by inch across the linoleum floor, but Edy had finally reached the side of the bathtub.

There was no time to rest. She could not hear Lynn at all, nor could she see the other woman through the ribbon blindfolding her. She shouted into her gag, desperately trying to get the Darcsen’s attention, but received no response at all. Her heart sank. Was she too late? Had Lynn drowned?

_No! I won’t let you die like this!_

She had planned to turn off the tap first, but if the bathwater was already high enough to drown Lynn, there was no time for that. She would have to go straight for the plug, and with her arms tied behind her at such an awkward angle there was only one way to do that.

Somehow, she managed to claw her way up to the edge of the bath by using her body as leverage; her bound legs, her chin and to her embarrassment, her breasts. At least nobody could see her like this, she told herself as she slowly hauled herself over the rim, listening carefully for the sound of Lynn’s breathing or her gagged cries.

Nothing.

Holding back a wave of horrified sorrow, Edy forced herself to go on. If there was even the slightest chance that Lynn was still alive, she had to save her. Taking as deep a breath as she could manage with her mouth stuffed with cloth, she shifted her weight and let herself drop into the bathtub. Water splashed in all directions, showering half of the bathroom with scattered drops.

She had thought herself cold before, rolling on the chilly linoleum floor in only her underwear, but the shock of her sudden contact with the icy water drew a shriek of alarm from Edy that was only partly muffled by her humiliating gag. Lynn had been forced to lie down in _this_!? It was freezing! 

That was the least of her problems, she quickly discovered; the water in the bathtub had shifted to compensate for her body mass, forcing it to surge upward toward the rim of the bathtub... and totally submerging her. Both women were now completely underwater.

There was not a moment to spare, not even to check on Lynn’s life signs. If she didn’t hurry, both of them were going to drown. Holding her breath and rolling herself onto her back, trying not to prod too hard against Lynn’s hogtied form, Edy began to fumble on the floor of the tub, seeking out the plug.

The process was made much more difficult by her binding; with each wrist still tightly bound to its opposing elbow, Edy could not use both of her hands together or move them from the one position. The only option she had was to move her entire body around, rolling left and right in the tub, and hope that her hand grazed against the plug before she ran out of air herself. There was not going to be a second chance to inhale.

~ ~ ~

Stahl stumbled from the bedroom and into the hall, flinching at the sound of another rocket impact on the outside of the house. The walls would not last much longer under this level of bombardment. This headquarters, once just a family home in a peaceful riverside city, would soon collapse into rubble around his ears.

It didn’t matter. There would always be another building to seize and convert to their needs, just as there would always be another Gustav to take up the lance in the service of his country. All that mattered now was reducing their losses and escaping to fight another day.

He refused to consider whether his predecessor might have held the garrison were he still alive, or if the second-in-command Stahl had personally killed for power would have done better.

His men were retreating as ordered, slipping through Vasel’s maze of alleyways and scurrying towards more securely held Imperial territory. It was time for Stahl too to take his leave, and as much as he wanted to enjoy tormenting the four Gallian women just a little longer, he knew that he couldn’t take even one of them with him. He didn’t even have the time it would take to execute the prisoners as one last exhibition of pure, heartless spite. The Darcsen had probably drowned by now, but the silver runt, the leggy dancer and the cowardly blonde would live to fight another day.

He descended the stairs, skipping every second step in his haste, and darted for the back door of the shuddering, faltering house. Beyond lay a once-verdant back garden, torn to shreds by mortar fire from a previous skirmish, and then another street with a multitude of narrow passageways that he could use to make his escape. They would never find him, not until he returned at the head of a tank battalion to repay the enemy for the losses they had suffered...

 _”Shit! Shitshitshit!”_ His hand on the doorknob, Stahl cringed from the crackling scream booming into his ear. He recognized Zeltman’s voice through the radio interference, one of his better troops. _“They’re coming around the back! They’ve got us surroun- ugh! Ghk...”_

Silence followed, at least from Zeltman. The airwaves were filled with howls and shouts and panicked chatter, so thick and blurred together that Stahl could no longer make out individual voices, or even words. His own mind whirring like a machine, he tore off his shocktrooper helmet and tore out the screeching radio, tossing it to the floor and stomping it flat. His men could guide themselves. There was only one person who mattered now, and he was in a very difficult position. 

How was he going to get out of this? The house was surrounded by the filthy Gallians...

Gallians. Of course!

Stahl began to climb the stairs once again, slipping his pistol from its holster. There was still one way out.

~ ~ ~

“Cease fire!”

The Gallian commander’s order was immediately heeded by his well-drilled troops, and the bombardment swiftly halted. They were no longer being attacked by the defenders of the now ruined base. Either they had all been killed, or, more likely, they had withdrawn.... right into the arms of Gallia’s flanking unit.

“Now, secure the building. Take any survivors alive if you can, but if that isn’t possible... do what you have to.” 

~ ~ ~

The only thing stopping Edy from screaming her frustration was the imminent threat of drowning.

She had found the plug at last, despite her tight bindings and her unexpected submersion, but lifting it out of its hole was proving far more troublesome than she had expected. Her grasping fingers could find no purchase on its smooth rubber surface, for there was no convenient chain to pull on and the tiny depression near the center was just too difficult for her to grip with her hands tied at such an awkward angle. With no other choice, she was reduced to fumbling about blindly, trying desperately to hook her fingernails into the seam between plug and hole.

She had to do this, _had_ to. Lynn’s life depended on it, and now, so did her own... but despite all of her efforts to remain focused, a familiar feeling was returning. She was starting to panic.

 _No! Not now! I need to concentrate!_ Her lungs were burning, demanding air. She could hold her breath for only a few moments longer. It was now or never. 

Ignoring the primal fear that was quickly seizing hold of her, Edy attempted to snare the bath plug one last time. Her fingernails slipped off of it at first, refusing even now to take hold of the rubber cylinder, but with the last of her long-held breath she was able to jam her nails between the plug and the metal hole in which it sat...

_Got it!_

Joyous relief swept over her as the plug popped out of its hole, finally allowing the bathwater to begin draining out of the tub. The tap was still running even now, dumping yet more water upon them, but the frigid liquid was now leaving the bath at a faster pace than it was entering. They were almost through this.

Less strictly bound than her hogtied Darcsen friend, Edy managed to push herself up against the sloping side of the bath with the very dregs of her strength, allowing her head to break the slowly lowering surface. Exhaling, inhaling, frantically sating her need for precious oxygen. She had saved herself, she realized as her panic dwindled with the bathwater. Against all odds, she was alive.

A series of shallow little gasps, barely audible, told her that she was not the only survivor.


	10. Judgment

The scene waiting for Stahl in the bathroom was not what he had expected.

Both of the prisoners he had left behind were now crammed inside the bathtub, and both of them were very much alive. Neither girl had shed any of their bindings, not even a blindfold, still tied up just as strictly as they had been when he had left them... yet somehow, despite everything, the silver-haired girl had managed to crawl all the way across the floor to the bath, climbed in, and then removed the plug and drained the water out of the tub before it could suffocate the Darcsen. She hadn’t managed to turn off the tap, but it was an impressive feat regardless. He had underestimated her.

Still, it was convenient. Drowned girls made poor hostages.

Time was running out. Stahl could no longer feel the building shaking beneath his feet, nor could he hear the sounds of rockets exploding against the house’s stone facade. If the Gallians had ceased fire, it was because they were preparing to enter the fallen base to pick over the remains. He had to act fast.

~ ~ ~

“Ground floor all clear, sir,” the Gallian lieutenant reported, snapping a well-practiced salute to his tall, handsome captain. “Looks like the Imps all cleared out of here. The back door team probably got ‘em.”

The unit captain nodded, but his grip staying firm on his rifle as he addressed his subordinate. “Upper floor, lad? And most older houses in Vasel have sizeable basements. I hope you have men checking on that.”

“Yes, sir, but I’m not expecting them to fin-”

“Sir!” An urgent voice rang from above. A moment later a young private, no older than eighteen, peered down from the top of the staircase leading to the top floor. His normally pale cheeks were stained bright red. “C-could you come up here, please?”

Lynn groaned, squeezing her eyes shut in dismay. Did more of her countrymen really need to see her like this?

The quiet Darcsen had been left on the upstairs landing for them to find, tightly bound to a wooden chair with the very rope that had once trapped her in a hogtie. Her blindfold was gone, as was the sock that had been tied over her nose, but her gag remained securely in place, as did the ropes lashing together her ankles, thighs, wrists and elbows. She was still too weak from her life-threatening ordeal to do anything anyway, her body still cold and damp from the water’s embrace, her mind reeling from her rescue from a death she had almost accepted...

She had thought that she would feel only relief when she was finally saved, but Stahl had taken even that from her. He had stripped away the last remnants of her clothing, leaving her shamefully bare for her rescuers to see, a final humiliation for his least favorite victim. Embarrassment came close to overwhelming her gratitude, made all the worse by the young private’s stammering alert and the arrival of two older men to behold her naked form. 

“T-this was on the floor, sir.” Taking pains to avoid looking in Lynn’s direction, the private handed a piece of paper to his superiors. Lynn hadn’t been able to read it herself, despite trying.

The lieutenant read it over, his eyes narrowing, before passing it to the captain. When the latter had finished reading it, he glanced up at Lynn; her eyes, she noted thankfully, not her breasts. “It’s from an Imperial soldier,” he informed her, his rifle still in hand. “He says you’re a Gallian POW, and that he’s in the bathroom with another prisoner and a gun. Is all of that true, Darcsen?”

Lynn nodded. The poorly-veiled contempt in that last word stung, but it was a feeling that she was accustomed to. 

“I see.” The captain frowned. For a moment Lynn wondered if he would ask her if the second prisoner was also a Darcsen before making his decision, but it appeared that her faith in humanity had been diminished enough for one day. “I’m going to untie you now,” he told her, reaching for the combat knife sheathed at his hip. ”I’ll need you to show us where the bathroom is. Private, try the bedroom just there, see if you can find her something to wear. And, Lieutenant Davids... keep your gun on her, just in case this is some sort of trick.”

_Some sort of trick!?_ Another twinge of hurt. Lynn supposed that they did need to be careful - placing a fake prisoner wouldn’t be beneath the Empire – but would they have taken this precaution if she had not borne the blue-black hair and eyes of the Darcsen race?

~ ~ ~

Edy shivered, despite the warmth of her captor’s body pressing firmly against her back.

Still holed up in the bathroom with his last remaining prisoner, Stahl held the silver-haired girl close to his chest, an unwilling human shield. He had severed the ropes binding her ankles, enabling her to walk with him as he moved, but the bindings still tied in place around her thighs limited her to taking only small steps. Her arms had not been released from their bindings, still secured wrists to elbows behind her back, nor had her gag been removed. Unlike poor Lynn, stripped naked before being left outside the room, Edy had been allowed to keep her underwear... though only, he had warned her with a painful squeeze of her breast, because he had run out of time to disrobe her.

At least her blindfold was gone. Having her sight stolen away had magnified her apprehension, making her feel more vulnerable than ever. She was glad to be rid of it, even if it did mean losing one of her favorite hair ribbons. If only the ribbon holding the pair of socks inside her mouth would follow suit; her jaw ached from holding them inside for so long, and the taste of soggy cotton hadn’t grown on her.

A voice from outside the door broke the silence, authoritative though slightly muffled by the thick wall. “Imperial soldier, we found your message. What do you want?”

One arm around Edy’s throat, his other hand holding his pistol to the side of her head, Stahl cleared his throat and spoke. “I want safe passage out of here and back to the Empire’s part of the city, and if I don’t get it, this little Gallian minx is going to end up dead. Are we clear on that?”

There was hesitation from the other side of the wall. “We’re clear. We are opening the door now. Don’t harm the prisoner.”

After a few moments the bathroom door swung open, revealing two Gallian soldiers with their rifles pointed at Stahl. A captain and a lieutenant, by their uniforms. “Prisoner confirmed,” the captain stated, most likely for the benefit of somebody Stahl couldn’t see. “She’s alive. Alright, Imp, where do we go from here?”

“I’m going to walk out of this house.” Stahl was confident, a fact that carried into his voice as he laid out his plans. “You and your Gallian friends are going to stand aside and let me leave, and you’re going to radio through to make sure none of your allies give me problems. It couldn’t be simpler. Once I get into safe territory, I’ll release the girl.”

_Or keep her. I haven’t decided yet._

The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Not happening. You can’t be trusted to let her go. Hand her over to us and you have our word we’ll send you back to your allies.”

“Yeah, in a box.” Stahl was equally unimpressed. “I don’t think so. I’m in charge here and we’re doing this my way... unless the girl’s life doesn’t mean that much to you after all?”

Edy closed her eyes, wishing that he had taken the gag out of her mouth. _She_ was the only thing keeping Stahl alive, the only obstacle to the Gallians shooting him, after everything he had done to her and to her squadmates. It disgusted her to be used as a tool to secure _his_ safety. She wanted to tell them to just take the shot and be done with it. Take the risk.

She told herself that that was what she would have said, had she not been gagged, but in her heart she knew that she couldn’t say such things. The fear of dying was too strong. She didn’t want her life to end like this, in an Imperial’s grasp, without ever knowing if her friends were safe, without seeing her parents and her sister again...

The captain pursed his lips, anger and frustration playing on his features. This was an impossible situation. Call the Imp’s bluff or allow him to leave with the girl, either way her safety was far from assured. It wasn’t even the thought of letting this one Imperial go that galled him so much, but the idea of letting him get away with one of their own. 

Against his better judgment, he let his eyes wander to the prisoner. Young, pretty and near naked, clad only in her underthings and shivering from cold. Bound in ropes, her mouth stuffed with cloth, her brown eyes shimmering with terrified tears. He couldn’t risk her life. It was obvious that she had been through enough.

He lowered his rifle, speaking the most bitter of words. “Men, stand aside. We’re letting this scumbag go.”

~ ~ ~

The dress the Gallian boy had found in the wardrobe was old, musty and tattered, but to Lynn it was an almost decadent comfort as she pulled it over her head and let it fall to cover her naked form. 

It seemed like a week had passed since she had worn anything more substantial than her underwear, but as the warm fabric steeled around her body she was almost able to forget about just how many men had seen her naked in the last few moments. Though still weak from her torture at the hands of her former captor, she was only too eager to reclaim control over her body once the young soldier had removed the ropes binding her body and the gag filling her mouth, choosing to clothe herself rather than let the boy do it. Her humiliation was finally over.

That was when she heard it.

“We’re letting this scumbag go.”

The Darcsen woman’s blood ran cold, elation at her newfound freedom giving way to utter disbelief. He couldn’t have just said what Lynn thought he had said. She couldn’t have heard right. They couldn’t be letting him just walk out of here after everything he had done! Not unless...

_Edy..._

~ ~ ~

Edy’s heart felt as heavy as stone.

One hand on the ropes binding her arms behind her back, the other holding the pistol to the base of her skull, Stahl forced her to step out of the bathroom and into the upstairs hallway. Her steps were small and careful, the rope around her thighs serving now to hobble her, but there was never any fear of falling over. Stahl’s life depended on keeping her upright and moving, one curl of his finger away from being a corpse.

“If she dies, you die,” the captain warned as Stahl turned Edy to face the staircase. His fingers were white-knuckled around his rifle.

“Then you’d best not put her in danger.” The Imperial’s reply was little better than a snarl. “Keep your distance and shut your mouth.”

The nudge of a metal barrel against her head instructed Edy to move. She took another awkward step and another, letting him guide her towards the stairs, knowing that from there he would take her out of the house. What then? Was he going to make her walk all the way to Imperial-held territory? How far was that? How much of the city had Gallia reclaimed since she had been captured?

When they reached their destination, was he really going to let her go free?

They were only a few feet away from the staircase now, and Edy steeled herself for their descent. The binding of her thighs turned the simple matter of navigating the stairs into a potentially troublesome task, for if she stumbled even once and the Gallians saw it as an opportunity to strike, things would quickly become very messy. As much as she despised her situation, making things easier for Stahl in turn made her survival more likely. The only thing keeping her alive was her usefulness to her captor. If she became a problem, she would die.

With every faltering step she took, another dark thought crossed her weary mind. If he got her all the way to Imperial territory, she might as well be dead. Fortune had smiled on the four Gallian women when the area had been recaptured by her countrymen, and there was no way she could depend on a second rescue. There was no longer even any information worth torturing out of her, and once the Imperials knew that, there could be only one fate for her.

_At least the others will be safe now. I failed to protect them, but they’ll be safe..._

_“NO!”_

A scream of furious desperation, a blur of movement to accompany it, and an instant later Edy found herself slammed hard against the floor by the weight of another person. Someone was on top of her, and it wasn’t Stahl; she felt another’s breasts pressed firm against her own and saw pale white skin and blue-black hair...

A gunshot tore the air.

The light had left Stahl’s eyes before he hit the floor.

~ ~ ~

_Some scars healed, some did not._

_Within days the Gallian army had reclaimed the entirety of Vasel, forcing the Imperial army into a full retreat from the riverside city. The tide of the war had finally turned, and while many months of conflict were still to follow, the victory resounded through the entire country, giving heart to the defenders of the once-peaceful land. The Empire was not invincible. The war was not unwinnable._

_However, for four Gallian women there would be no more fighting._

_Completely broken from her experiences in Imperial captivity, Susie Evans did not hesitate to take the offer of discharge from the militia’s ranks. She had barely spoken since the incident, despite the absence of any lasting harm inflicted upon her body. Her wounds were mental, not physical. Post-traumatic stress disorder, the medics had said. One day she might recover, but for now there was only one place for her; home, surrounded by the very family that had forced her to enlist in the first place. It was a mistake that no member of the Evans clan was ever likely to repeat, for a reminder of the consequences was with them forever more in their daughter’s once-vibrant eyes._

_Freesia York seemed not to be as profoundly affected as her shattered comrade, despite having gone through mostly the same events. The desert-born dancer had soon returned to her familiar old self, smiling and laughing and throwing lusty glances at her male comrades from the moment she was readmitted to the unit. Some of her remaining squadmates had their doubts about her swift recovery, believing it to be little more than an act, but if that were the case, it was an act that she never dropped. She refused to dwell on the past either way, never talking about her time in the Empire’s custody, and remained with Squad 7 until the end of the war._

_Of the former captives, the only one to be discharged from the unit against her wishes was Lynn. The quiet Darcsen had planned to return to the squad and fight beside her friends for Gallia’s future, but she hadn’t resisted the decision by her superiors to release her from her duties. They had never told her the exact reasons for her dismissal, and although they stressed that it was not intended to be a punishment, Lynn would always wonder if it was because of the risk she had taken to save Edy’s life. She returned to Fouzen and after the war she married her lover, Karl, himself a former member of the squad._

_Edy Nelson, like Freesia, chose to remain with the squad despite an offer of discharge. Unlike her friend, however, she proved to be unable to hide the effects of her captivity from the rest of the squad. Gone was the feisty, tough young woman her comrades had come to love and fear equally. In her place stood a sad little shadow of a girl prone to waking up in the middle of the night in tears. Her habit of panic under fire only worsened, and after almost fainting in the middle of a battle she accepted a second offer of discharge. No matter how hard she tried to push her memories away, they would continue to affect her for years to come; after the war left Gallia’s borders, she abandoned her attempts at seeking fame as a singer and accepted a life of quiet solitude in the country, as far from Vasel as she could get._

_The four women would never cross paths again, by accident or by design, and not a single one of them would regret it._

_Some things needed to stay in the past._


End file.
